Senate inquiry probes whether officials helped prepare file on Helen Haines

The Albanese government faced questions in a Senate committee about a file circulated from the Prime Minister’s office concerning federal MP Helen Haines. The scrutiny matters because senators are seeking to establish who prepared the material and whether any public servants contributed to it.

The file, which carried the name of the Prime Minister’s deputy communications director, listed funding requests Haines had made for projects in her regional Victorian electorate and suggested questions for journalists; it did not allege wrongdoing. First assistant secretary Pauline Sullivan said she knew nothing about the document or the reported metadata linking it to the department’s IT system, and could not confirm whether any official helped produce or review it. Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie asked her to take questions about possible conduct-code breaches on notice and said she would follow up with the Prime Minister’s office.