Rupert Murdoch bribed former judge Walter Sofronoff to protect the Liberal Party and conceal the Liberal’s political cover-up of the rape of Brittany Higgins at parliament house in 2019 and the “serious corrupt conduct” finding against Sofronoff last week helps support the bribery allegation.
I’ve written numerous articles about the Sofronoff inquiry and followed it from start to finish and the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner Michael Adams had no choice but to make the findings he did because all the evidence was known publicly.
I even get a mention in the report but not by name which I outline later.
Below are some of the key parts from the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner report into corruption allegations against Walter Sofronoff but I want to make a few key points first.
Walter Sofronoff leaked his report to News Corp’s Janet Albrechtsen to make sure Shane Drumgold could not take legal action to stop the ACT government from making it public.
A few days after Sofronoff leaked his report to Janet Albrechtsen he also leaked it to the ABC’s Elizabeth Byrne but that was only to try to cover his tracks of what he was really doing.
Janet Albrechtsen says she was also leaked a copy of the report from another source, but given Janet Albrechtsen lies 20 times a day, on a slow day, she is clearly lying again to protect Walter Sofronoff.
Investigation Report Operation Juno – By the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner Michael Adams into Walter Sofronoff (Click here to read the full report)
Introduction – summary of allegation – Page 1
3. On 22 September 2023, a mandatory corruption notification pursuant to s 62 of the IC Act was made to the Commission, reporting there was a suspicion on reasonable grounds that Mr Walter Sofronoff KC acting as the Board of Inquiry appointed under the Inquiries Act 1991 (the Inquiries Act) had engaged in serious corrupt conduct. The notification referred to two areas of conduct:
a. the delivery of a copy of the Board’s Report (the Report) to two journalists* before it had been made public by the Chief Minister* (described in this report as the additional publications), and
b. disclosures to and communications with members of the media during the course of the Inquiry (the media communications).
The term “disclosures” and “impugned communications” are also used in this report as a collective description of both areas of conduct.
4. The central question for the investigation was whether these disclosures breached the requirements of the Inquiries Act or other rules or principles governing the probity of the Inquiry such as to amount to corrupt conduct as defined in the IC Act, in substance as involving dishonesty or recklessness. As it happened, the only communications that were impugned were those between Mr Sofronoff and Ms Janet Albrechtsen* (a journalist with the Australian newspaper) and, following delivery of the Report to the Chief Minister, also Ms Elizabeth Byrne* (a journalist with the ABC). An important issue in this investigation concerned whether, in deciding to disclose information to them, Mr Sofronoff failed to afford natural justice to those with a relevant interest, particularly Mr Drumgold SC*, and the Chief Minister. In the result, therefore, four connected but distinct areas of concern are the subject of this Report (collectively referred to as the impugned conduct):
a. the communications between Mr Sofronoff and Ms Albrechtsen that were considered in the ACT Supreme Court proceedings initiated by Mr Drumgold against the Board of Inquiry (the litigation);
b. the communications by Mr Sofronoff of confidential matter (see paragraph 8) to Ms Albrechtsen;
c. the delivery of the Report to Ms Albrechtsen and Ms Byrne following delivery to the Chief Minister and before its public release by him; and
d. the failure of Mr Sofronoff to afford natural justice to the persons whose interests were affected by the decisions to make the communications.
Outline of findings – Page 2
5. Mr Sofronoff’s conduct fell within several elements of the definition of “corrupt conduct” in the IC Act –
- His disclosure of confidential material to journalists contrary to the obligations of confidentiality prescribed by the Inquiries Act could have amounted to offences against ss 17 and 36 of the Inquiries Act.
- His disclosure of the Report itself to journalists before it had been publicly released contravened the requirement of the Inquiries Act to provide the Report exclusively to the Chief Minister to determine the timing and extent of publication, subject to the role of the Legislative Assembly.
- The disclosures were dishonestly concealed from persons involved in the Inquiry, in particular Mr Drumgold and the Chief Minister, which prevented them taking protective legal action.
- This impugned conduct constituted the exercise of Mr Sofronoff’s official functions in a way that was not impartial, significantly compromised the integrity of the Inquiry constituting a breach of public trust and, in respect of his communications with Ms Albrechtsen, gave rise to an apprehension of bias that affected his findings about Mr Drumgold.
- That conduct could have justified Mr Sofronoff’s removal from the Inquiry.
6. Mr Sofronoff claimed that his conduct complied with the requirements of the Inquiries Act, and that he had acted in the public interest to ensure the media were adequately informed about the issues being investigated by his Inquiry and in a position to comment accurately about them. However, the Commission concludes that he had not, in fact, acted in good faith and that his conduct, amounting to corrupt conduct within the meaning of the IC Act, undermined the integrity of the Board’s processes and the fairness and probity of its proceedings to such an extent as to have been likely to have threatened public confidence in the integrity of that aspect of public administration. It therefore constituted serious corrupt conduct.
7. No other adverse comment or opinion has been made against any other person or entity named in this report.
Key events relating to the media disclosures throughout the conduct of the Inquiry – Page 4
- The provision to Ms Albrechtsen of the Report was part of a pattern of contact by Mr Sofronoff which included a very large number of communications with her throughout the course of the Inquiry. This included the provision of witness statements (as to some, that were subject to a non-publication order and subject to legal professional privilege), drafts of the Report, Notices of Adverse Findings against Mr Drumgold (the Notices – ultimately appended to the report) and Mr Drumgold’s initial Response to the Notices (the Response). Those four categories of documents are also collectively referred to in this report as the confidential matter and constitute part of the media communications referred to above. The evidence before the Commission records a large number of interactions between Mr Sofronoff and Ms Albrechtsen by phone, email and text message.
Conclusion – Page 69
- Having determined that the requirements of s 9(1) are satisfied, the next question to consider is whether this constitutes serious corrupt conduct as defined in s 10 of the IC Act. The application of this provision has been explained above. The corrupt conduct will be serious if it “likely to threaten public confidence in the integrity of government or public administration”. Mr Sofronoff’s corrupt conduct has significantly undermined the integrity of the Board’s processes and the fairness and probity of its proceedings. The Commission has concluded that this is likely to have threatened public confidence in the integrity of that aspect of public administration constituted by the Inquiries Act as well as the particular assessments and judgements made in the Board’s report concerning the administration of criminal justice. Accordingly, the corrupt conduct is serious.
Shane Dowling (me) gets mentioned in the report but not by name
There are 2 points that show I was mentioned in the report, even though I wasn’t named, and I will outline the 2 points and then see what is said in the report.
Firstly, when the Walter Sofronoff leaking scandal hit the fan in August 2023, I published an article which detailed my own phone conversation with Walter Sofronoff which said in part,
“Walter Sofronoff was personally calling journalists to trash whistleblower Shane Drumgold. How do I know? I spoke to him for 32 minutes after he emailed me asking to talk but all he did was trash Drumgold.” (Click here to read the article)
The ACT government were well aware of my reporting on the issue and this website was even named in court documents in the Shane Drumgold lawsuit that were handed over to the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner Michael Adams.
Secondly, in 2014 I was before Justice Adams for an interlocutory hearing in the Munsie v Dowling matter which was Kerry Stokes and his lawyer Justine Munsie suing me for defamation and the judge was Justice Michael Adams.
Adams only dealt with that interlocutory hearing and as part of his judgment he made me take down an article that I published accusing him of corruption so he in effect heard his own case. (Click here to read the judgment)
But I did go on to write more articles accusing Adams of corruption. (Click here to see the articles)
Michael Adams is now the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner and at one point it was known he had appointed John McMillan as an “Acting Commissioner” to investigate the Walter Sofronoff matter, but it was unknown why.
Let’s see what is said in the report:
The conduct of this investigation and the handling of an informant – Page 5
- Included in the documents provided to the Commission in the mandatory report was a statement from a source who was a potential witness should an investigation ensue. That person had appeared before the Commissioner in proceedings over which he had presided as a judge of the Supreme Court. Since it was possible that the person’s evidence might be significant in considering the media communications, the Commissioner decided he should recuse himself from dealing with the assessment of the mandatory notification in respect of that matter. Following appropriate arrangements with the Speaker of the Assembly, Professor John McMillan AO, as Acting Commissioner, therefore undertook, in respect of this part of the mandatory notification, the assessment and preliminary inquiry (under s 86 of the IC Act). He concluded that the information from the source was of insufficient cogency to be considered significant to the assessment and proceeded to assess the media communications without regard to the source’s information.
- In the result, Professor McMillan and the Commissioner decided that the issues covered by each aspect of the notification were so closely interconnected that they should be consolidated into the one investigation for which the Commissioner should be responsible. This has been done, with the consequence that this report deals with the entirety of the impugned conduct.
So, the report says,
- There was “a statement from a source who was a potential witness”.
- “That person had appeared before the Commissioner in proceedings over which he had presided as a judge of the Supreme Court.”
- “It was possible that the person’s evidence might be significant in considering the media communications”
- “The Commissioner decided he should recuse himself from dealing with the assessment of the mandatory notification in respect of that matter.”
Unless there was another journalist involved in the “media communications” who also had a proceeding before Michael Adams when he was an NSW Supreme Court judge then they are talking about me.
Murdoch bribery allegation
I published an article on the Murdoch bribery allegation in August 2023 titled “Corrupt judge Walter Sofronoff was bribed by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp to leak ACT Inquiry Report to Janet Albrechtsen” which starts off:
At the same time Walter Sofronoff was illegally leaking the ACT Inquiry Report, to propagandist Janet Albrechtsen, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was negotiating with Sofronoff to cash in on the dodgy ACT Inquiry findings.
A lot of people are asking what motivatedWalter Sofronoff, a former judge and Solicitor-General of Queensland, to put his career and liberty at risk by breaking the law with his leaking of the ACT Inquiry Report to Murdoch’s Janet Albrechtsen.
Below we will see the evidence showing some of the benefits that Walter Sofronoff was planning on receiving and they are linked to News Corp. But firstly, it’s worth noting this is not the first time this exact scam has happened. (Click here to read the article)
What happens now
Walter Sofronoff has instituted proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia to have the ACT’s Integrity Commissioner Michael Adams’ findings quashed.
If Walter Sofronoff fails in the Federal Court, which I have no doubt he will, then it is up to the ACT Police or ACT Director of Public Prosecutions to press charges against Sofronoff.
The bottom line is Walter Sofronoff knew News Corp’s Janet Albrechtsen was defending Bruce Lehrmann and attacking Brittany Higgins on the orders of the Murdoch’s and Walter Sofronoff was happy to help.
I’ll keep on following up on the story.
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