Luke is joined by Dr Abul Rizvi, former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration & author of ‘Population Shock’, to discuss the Mike Pazullo allegations made by the 9 papers & 60 Minutes.

The Secretary of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, has been asked to ‘stand aside’ pending an investigation by the APS Commissioner into whether Pezzullo breached the APS Values and Code of Conduct – a Code and Values Pezzullo professed he lived by and told all APS staff that they must also.

These reports allege that Pezzullo sought out and was then in close contact with Liberal Party powerbroker Scott Briggs from 2016. Pezzullo is alleged to have exchanged over a thousand text messages with Briggs over a five-year period in an effort to ‘influence political machinations with the highest offices in the land, including during Liberal leadership spills’.

Dr Rizvi says, if the text messages are found to be genuine, and there is no reason to believe they are not, the APS Commissioner will consider whether Pezzullo’s relationship with Briggs and the contents of the messages breached the APS Values and APS Code of Conduct.

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