• Christine Holgate is owed an apology from Prime Minister Scott Morrison after she was unfairly dismissed, a Senate Committee has found.
• Concluding its inquiry into her departure, it recommended Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham do so also, with Senator Pauline Hanson saying both were “equally culpable”.
• The Senators also called for her old boss and adversary, chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo, stand down as well.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

The federal government may not have realised it at the time, but its handling of the Christine Holgate saga has been akin to kicking a hornet’s nest. If it hadn’t before, there is now no avoiding the stings.

On Wednesday, the Senate handed down its findings into the whole affair, ignited when Holgate departed Australia as CEO. With the whole affair having dragged on for more than six months since, with a dozen governmental missteps throughout, the report is crystal clear in its conclusion.

Firstly, the Australia Post board, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham should “apologise to Ms Holgate for denying her the legal principles of procedural fairness and natural justice”, the report recommends.

Significantly, the Committee also called for Holgate’s old boss and main adversary, chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo, be removed from the organisation — a proposal endorsed by Holgate during public hearings.

Additional comments supplied by Senator Pauline Hanson, one of Holgate’s staunchest defenders in Canberra, did not hold back.

“Mr Di Bartolomeo’s evidence to both Senate Estimates and the Committee’s subsequent inquiry has shown him to, at best, have an appalling memory and, at worst, have been deliberately evasive and misleading,” Hanson said.

She meanwhile blamed Morrison directly for setting the whole thing off, while she said the “the behaviour of Minster Fletcher — ‘directing without actually directing’ the Chair to immediately stand her aside — and Minister Birmingham — offering assistance to a trusting Ms Holgate which never eventuated — makes them equally culpable.”

Holgate has since taken a new job at the helm of rival delivery service Global Express, and is looking for a $700,000 payout to cover her notice period.

The report itself urges the Solicitor-General investigate Fletcher to determine whether or not it was legal for him to instruct that Holgate be stood aside. That instruction was made after it was revealed Holgate spent $20,000 to reward employees with four Cartier watches. Morrison publicly echoed a similar sentiment, turning Holgate into a scapegoat for what was later revealed was, rightly or wrongly, routine spending within the organisation.

While it has frequently been said that luxury watches did not stand the so-called “pub test”, the case shone a light on the conflicted relationship between the postal service, and its only shareholder, the Australian government.

The Greens-led Committee concluded that to avoid future conflicts, Australia Post’s board should be restructured and should govern it as a typical public enterprise, rather than try to run it as a private business. Accordingly, the report recommended it receive nominees from both Houses of Parliament, employees within the organisation, unions and the licences who run individual offices.

Accordingly, it would be audited by the Australian National Audit Office and its complicated relationship with government made clear.

In a dissenting report, Liberal and National MPs instead claimed it was Labor’s fault, pointing out that the Opposition had changed its tune from calling for Holgate’s resignation to supporting her during the public hearings.

They rejected the suggestion the Board wasn’t independent and opposed the proposed restructure. Significantly, they also opposed privatisation of the postal service, a scenario that was considered as part of a secret review of Australia Post, and one that had been hinted at as the cause for Holgate’s dismissal.

For now, that looks off the table. But while the report concludes much of the public dissection of the ordeal, Canberra has some decisions to make now.

For the Prime Minister, his Cabinet colleagues and the Australia Post board, the pain is not finished just yet.

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