Friday, October 8, 2021

Should Michael Coutts-Trotter be allowed access to any AUKUS related intelligence- Coutts-Trotter denied security clearance by ASIO, while AUKUS will require highest levels of security & counter-intelligence

 by Ganesh Sahathevan 


The AUKUS Alliance will include the promotion of " deeper information and technology sharing". It will include "deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains". It "will significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defence capabilities."

The new alliance will involve Australia being provided technology, from the US and UK , that will enable the construction of nuclear-powered submarines.

Sharing of that technology will require that Australia maintain the highest level of security, and counter-intelligence.  The appointment of Michael Coutts-Trotter to the security sensitive position of  Secretary, Department of Premier and Cabinet NSW is inconsistent with this new security environment. Meanwhile, it is hard to see how he should be allowed access to any AUKUS related information. 


TO BE READ IWTH 






Thursday, October 7, 2021

Only in NSW-Man jailed for drug offences, denied ASIO security clearance ,will be next head of Dept of Premier & Cabinet

 by Ganesh Sahathevan


The Daily Mail UK headline says it all:

Dom Perrottet picks a former heroin addict and drug smuggler with a remarkable redemption story as his right-hand man and NSW's top public servant


However, the story does not end there, the security implications are serious: 


Tuesday, April 2, 2019

ASIO denied Coutts-Trotter a security clearance for a junior position in Canberra; in his new job as Secretary ,Department Of Justice ,ASIO will have to provide him access to top secret intelligence.

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Mr Coutts-Trotter with his wife and Labor deputy
leader Tanya Plibersek at the Mid Winter Ball at 
Parliament House in Canberra last year. Picture: AAP


More on the imminent appointment of Michael Coutts-Trotter to the position of Secretary ,Department of Justice.An  excerpt from a 2012 SMH story suggests that the Berjelikian  Government has other priorities that take precedence over good governance:
But for all his determination to remake his life, Coutts-Trotter would forever have a criminal record. When he graduated with a degree in communications from UTS in 1995, he landed a job in the office of Brian Howe, then Labor deputy PM, but his new career in Canberra was quickly derailed when ASIO denied him a security clearance.

A few months later, his record initially meant he was passed over when he applied to be press secretary to Michael Egan, treasurer in the newly elected Carr Labor government in NSW, but someone put in a good word and Egan directed that he at least be given an interview.

"......Coutts-Trotter stayed almost seven years, becoming Egan's chief of staff and a confidant of the state's leading bureaucrats before being headhunted for the position of director-general of the NSW Department of Commerce.


Then, in April 2007, then NSW education minister John Della Bosca appointed Coutts-Trotter director-general of the NSW Department of Education and Training.

(see http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/cool-calm-elected-20120921-2612j.html)

END

See also 


NSW's new Dept of Justice chief M.Coutts-Trotter likely to be denied entry into most South East Asian countries given his drug offences :Coutts-Trotter was jailed for three years. Dept Of Justice oversees the legal profession


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