Celia Perkins

These witnesses, Chair, do not get to censor what the Australian public sees.

I might ask if we could have a short break to get some advice from the clerks about that extraordinary request from Ms Perkins.

Yeah, he's right.

They are paid by the public purse and Australian taxpayers have a right to full transparency.

And after the break, the advice from the clerk was that witness evidence can be used on social media.

But even that's a little complicated, which I'll get to.

And it led to this response from Celia Perkins.

I make my request, Senator, and I accept the ruling of the Clerk, in a very specific way and very specifically, and I think will be in agreement here, that my objection and my withdrawal of consent is around using this evidence and likenesses outside the framework of the parliament and the transparent public proceedings of this committee.

Well, imagine if you've got this whole row of senators up there who have no respect for you just because you're a senior public servant and you're making $500,000 a year.

I found, like, we're talking about that extraordinary testimony from Celia Perkins, Deputy Secretary in Defence, who was in front of a parliamentary inquiry into the Defence Plan property sales.

And at the end of her testimony, she read out this statement about how she and the other defence witnesses didn't consent to the use of their images or testimony outside the transparency framework of the Parliament.

She was trying to stop parliamentarians and anyone else... from republishing excerpts of her testimony and others publicly from an open parliamentary hearing.

So apparently Canberra loves transparency as long as you don't say anything to upset them.

Now, all of this blew up after senior defense bureaucrat Celia Perkins appeared at a public Senate hearing.

She said she didn't want video footage shared online.

[whooshing sound] The defense witnesses appearing before the committee today, I do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites.

Thank you for having me.

Luke, this was the reasoning given by one very senior Defence Department Deputy Secretary, Celia Perkins, before the Senate estimates last Friday.

Take a listen.

Chair, in closing, I would note for the record that the Defence witnesses appearing before the committee today are pleased to take your questions, but they do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites or the reproduction of our likenesses for the purposes outside the framework of the Parliament and the transparent public proceedings of this committee.

but they do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites or the reproduction of our likenesses for the purposes outside the framework of the Parliament and the transparent public proceedings of this committee.

That was a Department of Defence Deputy Secretary of Security in the State, Celia Perkins, speaking before a parliamentary inquiry last week.

Well, a submission authored by the nation's top bureaucrats alleges the comments sections on social media videos of officials often descend into, quote, highly offensive and sometimes defamatory vitriol causing harm to the safety and wellbeing of government officials.

Andrew Podger is the former Commissioner of the Australian Public Service and joins me now.

And so politicians... right across the political spectrum, are putting out clips of the bureaucrats facing questions, usually questions they can't answer, often questions that are probably better directed at the minister because they're political, and the public servant sits there and ums and ahs, and so then it gets posted.

And so you've got, for instance, senior defence official Celia Perkins appeared before a Senate probe on Friday.

She's saying she claims there was selective posting of her colleagues' comments.

And so this saying is undermining their mental health.