Crikey

Who does this sound like? “These people are bad but I can’t tell you about it because everything’s confidential you know.”

Yes, you guessed it, none other than Dr Secret himself – Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews.

Mr Andrews has this nasty habit of tarnishing the reputation of people he wants to pick a fight with, and then hiding behind the veil of Cabinet secrecy or national security when asked to explain his questionable actions.

Today it is the Sudanese community in Melbourne; three months ago it was Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef.

To get a taste of what we mean – compare these quotes from Mr Andrews. This one from yesterday, as he sought to explain why the Howard government wants to curtail the number of Sudanese refugees:

The advice on which we made the decision was largely material which was provided in submissions to cabinet and, as you know, cabinet submissions are confidential.

And now this one from 17 July 2007 in an interview with the ABC’s Fran Kelly when Mr Andrews sought to justify his clearly wrong decision to cancel Dr Haneef’s visa:

There was discussions obviously with the AFP about the information. I can’t reveal, because it’s protected under the law, I can’t reveal what that information is, except to say that I was provided with the information that was sufficient in my mind to form a reasonable suspicion and this is also a part of an ongoing investigation and an ongoing operation.

Of course, if Mr Andrews acts true to form and feels it’s politically advantageous to do so, he will bend a little as he did in the Haneef case, and release selective material to put the case of the Sudanese community in the worst possible light.

Kevin Andrews’s obsession with confidentiality and secrecy is nothing more than an attempt to heighten fear among voters. He is cynical politics personified.