By Will Nicholas in Canberra

Public servants copping “horrendous” and “atrocious” abuse online do not have the right to scrub footage other people have posted of them from social media, an official has revealed.

Top bureaucrats pleaded with the government in September to ban people clipping up and posting video of them at parliamentary hearings after reporting vicious online attacks.

The officials had relayed harassment over physical appearances, comparisons to Nazis and pedophiles, and listed “despicable”, “filth”, parasite” and “demonic” among a slew of abuses revealed in a submission to a probe into parliamentary standards.

“I was looking at some footage on the weekend and some commentary underneath the footage,” Senate clerk Richard Pye said during Senate estimates on Monday, saying he knew of bureaucrats who had been “bruised” and “really deeply affected” by the vitriol.

“It was posted by someone who’s obviously got it from the web feed, and the commentary underneath it was horrendous, the reflections on the witness were atrocious.”

Mr Pye criticised the figures for not directing grievances through proper channels.

“It’s absolutely not something that a witness can do … there are well-trodden paths for people to raise these matters through the secretariats, with the committees themselves.

“But it’s profoundly unhelpful, on the day, for the matter to be raised in that way without any notice.”

All parliamentary hearings are live-streamed, broadcast and remain freely available online, and what witnesses say in them is indelibly etched into the public record.

But the senior public servants had argued in September that posting video footage of them was not necessary to keep them accountable, instead suggesting their testimony be published as transcripts, with comments disabled or enriched with ample context.

They had also not consented to third parties editing, captioning and publishing their likeness on social media, they contended.

“It’s going to require a lot of sensitivity and ingenuity to … clean up the conduct associated with the way in which social media clips are dealt with,” Mr Pye said on Monday.

“We need to remind ourselves (of) the accountability that is involved in these processes – the scrutiny … that can’t be thrown out in these issues.”

The high-ranking officials were members of the secretaries’ board, Australia’s most senior leadership forum comprising all heads of department, some of whom earn more than $1 million a year.

They copped stern criticism at the time, particularly from the Greens, over concerns of trying to put a veil between themselves and the public.

Mr Pye said how politicians and others treat footage of public servants was a matter for the parliament, not bureaucrats.

“(It’s important that) matters are properly dealt with by the parliament and not by way of other people purporting to rein in the activities of the Senate committees,” he said.

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