Portfolio — 28 May 2026

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland's activity across 27–28 May is defined by two distinct but thematically linked moves: a major Federal Court action against 3M and a parliamentary defence of the NACC appointments regime — both framed around the portfolio's core accountability agenda.

The headline development is the Commonwealth's lawsuit against 3M Australia and 3M Company, filed in the Federal Court over alleged withholding of information about PFAS-containing firefighting foam [TA-260528-attorn-3889d9097c8b]. The government is seeking more than $2 billion in damages to recover past and future Defence costs across 28 bases [TA-260528-attorn-24c3cda1abbd].

The scale of the claim is significant: Defence has already outlaid $1.3 billion on PFAS response, covering $408 million in legal settlements, treatment of over 200,000 tonnes of contaminated soil, and water assistance to 785 properties [TA-260528-attorn-3889d9097c8b]. The Attorney-General's office frames the litigation explicitly as a strategy to hold polluters accountable and recover environmental, economic, and cultural costs for affected communities [TA-260528-attorn-3889d9097c8b].

The action spans both the Attorney-General's and Defence portfolios: Assistant Minister for Defence Peter Khalil highlighted Defence's ongoing remediation work and community support in joint messaging, making the cross-portfolio coordination visible in the announcement itself.

In the House the previous day, Rowland defended the government's approach to NACC appointments, confirming that all appointments follow a publicly advertised, merit-based selection process under which only candidates assessed as suitable are forwarded to the Attorney-General [TA-260527-house-ef5cc5d1c124:s160]. She further noted that appointments are then referred to the cross-party Parliamentary Joint Committee on the NACC, with each decision reported to Parliament — and that every appointment to date has received unanimous committee endorsement [TA-260527-house-ef5cc5d1c124:s160].

The parliamentary exchange reinforces the same accountability framing the portfolio deploys in the PFAS litigation: independent process, transparent mechanism, multi-party oversight.

The two streams connect directly. The PFAS suit operationalises the "hold actors accountable" posture; the NACC exchange defends the integrity architecture the government has built to do the same within the public sector. Both are expressions of the portfolio's stated approach to protecting public interests through enforceable standards and independent process.

The PFAS action also extends the portfolio's recent harm-protection focus — the $4.1 million HEAR training package announced on 26 May addressed domestic-violence policing; the 3M litigation addresses environmental contamination — indicating the portfolio is moving on multiple harm-reduction fronts simultaneously.