Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Speaker has received letters from the honourable member for Wentworth and the honourable member for Kennedy proposing that definite matters of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion today. As required by standing order 46(d), the Speaker has selected the matter which, in his opinion, is the most urgent and important; that is, that proposed by the honourable member for Wentworth, namely:

The failure of the Government to establish an immediate and full judicial inquiry into the OzCar affair.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Throughout this week we have seen one of the most scurrilous attempts by a government in this country’s history to shield itself from the truth. The Labor Party are trying to run a smokescreen of smear against the opposition because they know the Treasurer has misled the parliament. They know the Treasurer misled the parliament because he has told this House that all of the 240 car dealers who sought support under the OzCar scheme were treated the same. He told the House that the Prime Minister’s mate and benefactor, the car dealer John Grant, was treated ‘just like everybody else’. We now know that the sordid truth at the heart of this scandal is that John Grant was treated like nobody else.

In order to protect themselves from the fact that the Treasurer has misled the House we have seen a smokescreen of smear flung up against the opposition. It has as at its core two great disgraceful lies—two Labor lies.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition knows that that is an inappropriate use of the word.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is fine, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition may find herself out if she is not careful.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has claimed that the opposition has been responsible for fabricating an email, creating a fake email. The second lie has been that the government has claimed that the opposition based its criticism of the Prime Minster and the Treasurer on this fake email. That too is false.

The only reason the government wants to talk about the fake email is that there are so many real emails that contain so many details about the OzCar scheme that are so damaging to the government. The Prime Minister has been dishonest and hypocritical in his desperate attempts to protect his Treasurer and the government over the $550 million OzCar affair. The Treasurer has been caught out misleading the parliament over the special treatment he gave the Prime Minister’s Queensland mate John Grant. Remember this, the Treasurer arranged for Mr Grant’s finance request to be presented to the Chief Executive Officer of Ford Credit by Treasury officials at a meeting in which Ford Credit were seeking access to a $550 million government guarantee—$550 million of finance that was vital for Ford Credit’s survival. This leverage that the government found itself with was deployed for the benefit of the one man who gave the Prime Minister a free car, John Grant—the Prime Minister’s friend and benefactor.

We have made it very clear in response to these Labor lies and smears they have presented against us that we have had nothing to do with the creation of any fake email. I see the Minister for Finance and Deregulation here. He said in the House yesterday that this allegedly fake email was created where? On a computer in the Treasury department. It is perfectly obvious that we could have absolutely nothing to do with the creation of that email. The insinuation has been—first it was an allegation, but now it is just an insinuation—that the opposition were involved in the creation of that email.

Secondly, we have never sought to base our criticism of the government on that email. Last Friday, after Godwin Grech, a senior Treasury official, the man the government put in charge of this OzCar financing vehicle—and there was $2 billion of funding committed towards it—gave sworn testimony that contradicted the evidence the Prime Minister had given in the House, was when I criticised the Prime Minister and said that, unless he could justify his actions and reconcile the contradiction between the evidence of the Treasury official and his own statements, he should resign. We did not base our criticism on any reports of an email—fake or otherwise. The only criticism that was based on emails was the continuing criticism of the Treasurer, which was based on a slew of emails that were produced by his own department and given to the Senate.

The opposition’s calls for the Treasurer to resign rely on the solid, incontrovertible evidence drawn from those emails presented by Treasury. All of that evidence is authentic and beyond dispute. The Treasurer says that Mr Grant was treated like everybody else. Well, that is not the case. There was a personal phone call from the Treasurer, there were updates faxed to the Treasurer’s home—and there were none about any other dealer—there was a mobile phone number handed over to Ford Credit, there was no financial assessment of Mr Grant’s business and, most importantly, there was that incredible pressure on Ford Credit to look after Mr Grant when they were after $550 million of government support. They were told he was a mate of the Prime Minister. Imagine the pressure put on Ford Credit to help Mr Grant.

We will continue to pursue the Treasurer for his improper conduct in the OzCar affair, but before I proceed to speak further about that let me say something about the question of character. The Prime Minister has sought to say that this is a question of character. What do we say of the character of a Prime Minister who makes unsubstantiated allegations against the opposition? What do we say about the character of this Prime Minister who, when he was in opposition, accused the Prime Minister, the foreign minister, the trade minister and half our frontbench of criminal activities and said that the Howard government had been underwriting Saddam Hussein’s activities, financing suicide bombers? He accused the government of corruption and when it was established in a judicial inquiry that all of those claims he made were false, he gave no apology whatsoever.

Our accusations against the Prime Minister were based on the evidence to the Senate committee but clearly that particular evidence must now be under question because of the assertion that there was a fake email produced in the Treasury and the inference that it may be connected with the witness. That is the inference and that is why I have said—and this is the test of my character—that the criticism of the Prime Minister that we made last Friday, in the light of those developments, cannot be sustained. That is what we have said. That is a concession the Prime Minister never gave to us when he was in opposition and we were in government.

The only way for the Prime Minister to enable us to get to the bottom of this OzCar scandal is to have a full independent judicial inquiry. We have moved to set one up twice today and on each occasion the government has knocked it back. That inquiry would have the full cooperation of the opposition. It is vital that there be some sunlight let into these activities. How could it be that the financing arrangements of one Queensland car dealer, John Grant, became a personal mission for the Treasurer of our country? How could it happen that the Treasurer’s private office on 20 February sent an email to the senior Treasury official responsible for the $2 billion OzCar financing scheme, Godwin Grech, urging him—indeed instructing him—to make representations on behalf of that Queensland car dealer, and then, only three days later, for Mr Grech to go into that meeting with Ford Credit, at a time when Ford Credit was so desperately seeking $550 million of Commonwealth financial support, and spend a significant portion of the time at the meeting making the case for Ford Credit to take up the financing needs of Mr Grant, who was not in any event a Ford dealer?

Now, as both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have said, this has been a time of great uncertainty for the motor vehicle industry. Yet how was it that so much of the focus of the Treasurer, his private officials and, on instruction, senior Treasury officials should be devoted to the business interests of that one Queensland car dealer? Why amongst all the car dealers in Australia having difficulty obtaining finance earlier this year was Mr Grant’s mobile telephone number the only one provided by Treasury officials to Ford Credit? Why was it that the Treasurer took time out from the global financial crisis in the frantic lead up to his trip to Britain for the G20 finance ministers meeting to phone Mr Grant to discuss whether and to what extent Mr Grant might be able to access OzCar finance? Why did the Treasurer then have his own office provide Mr Grant with Rolls Royce treatment by setting up a direct phone conversation with Mr Grech? Why was Mr Swan, the Treasurer, kept constantly in the loop, with regular updates on all email exchanges relating to Mr Grech’s work on behalf of Mr Grant copied directly to the Treasurer’s home fax?

The reality is that the treatment accorded to Mr Grant was very, very special indeed. It was absolutely Rolls Royce treatment. He might have been a Kia dealer but he certainly got the Rolls Royce treatment from the Treasurer. How special was it? Let us make some comparisons. Mr David Purchase, the Executive Director of the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce, which represents 350 car dealers in Victoria and Tasmania, writes in a letter that he is: ‘unaware of any of our car dealer members receiving any direct assistance from Treasury or any other government department to directly access the special purpose vehicle OzCar’.

So rather than having their cases represented by Treasury officials directly to the CEO of a major finance company, Victorian and Tasmanian car dealers were without exception instructed to run their own race—contact the finance firms directly, with no special pleading from officials. Which would have carried more weight, we ask. A direct representation to the chief executive of a finance company by the very same Treasury officers who were also determining whether that finance company should gain access to a half-billion-dollar Commonwealth backed line of credit or a cold call without any official support? The answer is clear: it cannot be denied; the Prime Minister’s mate and benefactor Mr Grant received extraordinary and unmatched access, consideration and representation.

Plainly, the Treasurer has not told the truth. Plainly, the Treasurer is seeking to hide the truth. Australians are not fools; they know all about the culture of favours for mates that we have seen all too many times before from Labor—cronyism and preferential dealing. That is the Labor style. Instead of dealing with that issue, forcing his Treasurer to resign and agreeing to our calls for a full judicial inquiry, the Prime Minister is desperately trying to distract the country by making wild allegations against the opposition. All of these claims, all of these smears against the opposition are to the government’s knowledge completely and utterly baseless but they have continued to make them relentlessly because they are a smoke screen to protect the Treasurer.

On our side of the House we remember how the Prime Minister went about winning headlines in 2006; how he went about day after day as shadow minister for foreign affairs making wild and scurrilous accusations against a prime minister, a foreign minister and a trade minister; and how on 15 different occasions at 15 different press conferences he demanded that heads must roll. Not only did he call for resignations, not only did he accuse those ministers of corruption but he made the outrageous allegation that they were feathering the nest of Saddam Hussein. And when, as I said earlier, a judicial inquiry found those smears and insinuations to be utterly baseless, when it vindicated those three senior ministers he had so wrongly accused, he did not apologise, he did not retract; he showed not the slightest remorse. He simply accepted the reward of his Labor mates—they made him Leader of the Labor Party.

The feigned indignation that we have seen from this government this week is a measure of its dishonesty and of its Prime Minister’s hypocrisy. The fact is that we in the opposition have been asking the questions that are being asked by millions of Australians across the country: has this Treasurer used the enormous advantage of the Commonwealth to try to secure an advantage for a mate and benefactor of the Prime Minister; has there been an attempt by this government at the highest levels to cover this up? These are vital questions that go to the probity of the government. They must be investigated. They must be investigated independently and openly, and the best way to do that, the only way to do that, is with an independent judicial inquiry. It says much about the attitude of the government and their determination to avoid scrutiny that they have twice resisted a judicial inquiry when it has been proposed to them today.

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has certainly been a weird week in national politics—a truly amazing week. I would like to reflect on some of the events that we have seen over the past week. At the press gallery ball, we have seen the Leader of the Opposition confronting a staff member of the Prime Minister, effectively threatening him and trying to bully him. We have seen the opposition accusing the Prime Minister of corruption—pretty much the most serious accusation that you can make against a Prime Minister—without the slightest shred of any evidence. We have seen a public servant telling an inquiry that he thought he had an email from the Prime Minister’s office—there was no copy of it available—but he could be mistaken.

We have seen the Liberal Party—the Leader of the Opposition and other members of the Liberal Party—after weeks of scuttling around the corridors to the gallery and elsewhere peddling this email and, indeed, confronting one of the Prime Minister’s staff members with its existence and also being the first to publish the contents of the email—namely, Senator Abetz in the Senate inquiry hearing on Friday. Subsequently, we have seen them back-pedalling furiously from any connection with this email, once it had been established that the email was a fake. We have seen them claim that their accusations of corruption against the Prime Minister, which were made so unequivocally on Friday, were entirely based on Mr Grech’s evidence and had nothing to do with any purported email—this was after their having peddled the existence of such a document around the place for weeks. This claim, according to their own words, now rests purely on the fact that Mr Grech said at the Senate inquiry that he thought he could recollect such an email but, then again, he might be wrong and he did not actually have any copy of it. This is hardly a firm foundation for an accusation of corruption against the Prime Minister.

We have even seen things get to the ludicrous point yesterday when the Leader of the Opposition suggested that perhaps the demeanour of Mr Grech in the Senate inquiry could be explained by the fact that he is a little bloke and he was sitting next to another bloke from Treasury who was a big bloke and who was maybe physically intimidating him. That illustrates the level to which the opposition’s dialogue on this issue has got. That illustrates where things have got to. Finally, and most recently, we have seen members of the Liberal Party leaking to the ABC, telling Chris Uhlmann from ABC TV, that the Leader of the Opposition had extensive connections with Mr Grech.

Today, to culminate all of this, we have hit the jackpot. After his own case has collapsed in total embarrassment, the Leader of the Opposition is now moving for a judicial inquiry into the entire affair. We have established a few political firsts today during question time. We have had not once but twice the opposition trying to gag ministers while they were answering questions. We have had two suspension motions moved during question time. I cannot remember that happening before. In fact, we have had three in one day. We have had one of those suspension motions ruled out of order because of the fact that the opposition did not realise that they could not put exactly the same motion twice within the one session. To cap it all off, we have had the Manager of Opposition Business stand up and complain about the member for North Sydney being thrown out because he was moving the matter of public importance debate today, not knowing that in fact it was the Leader of the Opposition who was to move that matter of public importance.

That is a pretty good list of political firsts today, but they are all put into the shade by the ultimate political first—the Leader of the Opposition moving for a judicial inquiry into these events. He is effectively standing up and demanding a judicial inquiry into himself. That is the true import of what the Leader of the Opposition is pursuing. This must be the first occasion in Australian political history where a leader of a party has stood up and demanded a judicial inquiry into himself. That would have to be an Australian first. There are some odd aspects to his proposal, even on the terms as he expresses them. The proposed judicial inquiry would investigate the behaviour of the Prime Minister and his staff. Yet, as far as we understand it, the opposition is now conceding that the alleged email from the Prime Minister was a fake and, indeed, the case of corruption against the Prime Minister cannot be sustained. So why they are now asserting that there needs to be a judicial inquiry into the Prime Minister’s behaviour after they have conceded that there is no case to answer is a bit hard for me to understand.

I note that the opposition did indicate, at least in a very general way, that they might be prepared to provide information to the Australian Federal Police about their own computers and what, if any, role they have had in the dissemination, promotion and propagation of this email. But they are yet to actually clarify precisely where they stand on this question. After all of their behaviour in making completely baseless, unfounded accusations of corruption against the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, for them to now seek to establish a judicial inquiry into this matter is simply astonishing. It is a bit like the Moran family calling for an inquiry into organised crime.

Let us be clear here: the person with the questions to answer is the Leader of the Opposition. He is the person who has serious questions to answer here, not the Prime Minister—no evidence has been presented to show that he has done anything wrong whatsoever, and the opposition has conceded that the case is not sustained—and not the Treasurer: all the opposition has done is highly selectively and misleadingly grab a few facts out of a wide range of facts, present them in a most tendentious way and make the most grossly inflated and ludicrous claims against the Treasurer, which are completely without foundation. So they do not have any case to answer. The only person who has a case to answer, the only person who has to answer some serious questions here, is the Leader of the Opposition. He has to be in the dock himself on his involvement in these matters and also in the political dock on his judgment in the way that he has dealt with the issue.

I suggest to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that a few of the questions that the Leader of the Opposition could consider answering are: when did he or other members of the opposition first see the fake email? Do any of the opposition members have copies of the email on their computer systems? How many times has the Leader of the Opposition spoken to Mr Grech in recent times and what about? Are there any email exchanges with Mr Grech? Which journalists did the opposition promote this email to? How long have they been boasting about having a smoking gun around the corridors of parliament to journalists and others? And, particularly, will they enable the AFP to examine their computers? Will they give unfettered access to their computer records and computer data? So it is the Leader of the Opposition who has got the serious questions to answer.

He has also got to answer for the bad judgment in making an impetuous, irresponsible call off the back of no evidence to assert to the Australian people that our Prime Minister is corrupt and is telling lies to the Australian people. That is an extremely serious accusation. He is now saying that he made that accusation on the basis of a statement by a public servant at a Senate committee hearing that the public servant thought he might have received an email from the Prime Minister’s office but then again he might be wrong and, by the way, there is no copy of that email. In the opposition leader’s own words, that is the basis for an assertion that the Prime Minister of this country is corrupt. That tells you everything you need to know about the character and the judgment of the Leader of the Opposition—completely intemperate, completely unbalanced, completely obsessed with obtaining power at all costs, going totally over the top and prepared to do and say anything in order to further his objectives.

Like some in the government I have had a bit of experience of opposition. In fact, I was in opposition for quite a long time and I was a shadow minister for virtually all of that time. Over those years I have been involved in a number of very prominent controversies in circumstances where information that could be damaging to the government comes to you in a variety of different ways and sometimes in unusual ways. I had involvement in the waterfront dispute and the outrageous training of industrial mercenaries in Dubai to replace the sacked waterfront workforce. I had involvement in exposing the role a former transport minister played in trying to sack people from the CASA board. We had the ensuing travel rorts issues, Peter Reith’s telecard—and the list goes on. So I have had a fair involvement from that side in tackling controversial issues and attacks on the government. One thing I learned in those processes is that you approach those controversies with great caution because inevitably around this place false documents, furphies, gossip, lies and all kinds of things surface. They come from all parts of the country and all sorts of weird stuff swirls around. It is the nature of politics. But political leaders have to have the judgment to know that they cannot just simply grab hold of something that is tantalising and tempting and throw it into the public domain without accepting responsibility for the implicit assertion that they are making against the character of the people who are being attacked.

That is precisely what the Leader of the Opposition has done. He has been prepared to publicly accuse the Prime Minister of corruption and lying off the back of no substantive evidence. A more temperate leader, a leader with character and judgment would have looked at the email and said: ‘This is not enough. I cannot put this out into the public domain. I cannot make an assertion on the basis of Mr Grech’s contradictory and confusing statements to the Senate. I will have to hold my fire and restrain myself to asking questions.’ There is a lot of rubbish that circulates in the political process and it takes genuine leadership to be able to sort out the rubbish and the fakes from the stuff that is serious.

We need to understand here that, by his impetuosity, his egocentricity and his blind arrogance, the Leader of the Opposition has demonstrated to the Australian people that he is unfit to lead this nation. For the person who is auditioning for the role that could be central to decisions like taking Australia to war or dealing with an economic crisis, the question that the Australian people need to ask off the back of this whole affair is, ‘Do we want this man’s finger on the button?’ He has demonstrated that he has major character flaws that cannot be allowed in a prime minister of this nation, irrespective of which party they represent. He has shown he is prepared to do whatever it takes to win power and whatever it takes to slur the character of the Prime Minister, but what he has not shown is character, judgment and balance in pursuing the interests of this nation.

We have also seen that his own colleagues are now deserting him with great rapidity. They are divided on the big issues—climate change, changes to asylum seeker laws and the nation-building bills, where they managed to vote three separate ways. It was the first time in Australian political history that a major political party has somehow voted three different ways on the same piece of legislation. We had Liberal-National Party members defying their leader on the alcopops legislation a day or two ago. They are about to defy him on the asylum seeker legislation. We have had his own party leaking to the ABC the suggestion that he has had extensive reliance on and contacts with Mr Grech in the recent past. And we have had the infamous behaviour of the member for North Sydney on Lateline. When he was asked about what discussions had occurred between Mr Grech and Mr Turnbull, he responded by saying, ‘Well, that’s a matter for Malcolm Turnbull and Godwin Grech.’ That is really going into the trenches to defend your leader. He was then asked by Tony Jones:

So the buck does not stop with Malcolm Turnbull for what is being identified by many people as a tactical blunder and a disaster?

The member for North Sydney response was:

Well, you know what, Tony, I’m part of a team. I mean, you don’t always agree with individual decisions that are made by individual players in the team.

In other words, he is saying, ‘I am cutting him loose; I am not going to support my leader.’ The rats are deserting the sinking ship. I have a solution to suggest to the Leader of the Opposition. As somebody who has experienced opposition for a long time and known some dark days, you know what you have got to do—hold a retreat. All go away for a weekend together to the Blue Mountains or Thredbo or somewhere like that and hold a retreat. I can tell you that it is a lot of fun. You can all sit around and hold hands together and sing Kum Bi Yah, have a nice drink and have a singalong and that will solve the Liberal Party’s problem.

What is going on here is a giant smokescreen by the Leader of the Opposition because he refuses to front up and explain his full role in this affair and because he refuses to answer questions about his contacts with Mr Grech. He is seeking to move something and obfuscate his role by saying, ‘Let’s have a judicial inquiry into everything, including people who I have already conceded have got no case to answer.’ The whole purpose of the Leader of the Opposition proposing this is to obfuscate the fact that he is refusing to come clean on his role in this exercise. That is the whole reason this is being proposed to the House today.

This issue is not just about leaked documents either. I am afraid that his excuse—saying, ‘Sorry, I can’t reveal my sources’—when you have the possibility of serious crimes being committed, is very flimsy indeed. It is not just a public servant leaking cabinet documents here; you have the possibility of serious criminal offences being committed and the Leader of the Opposition is refusing to cooperate. He is refusing to tell the full story of his involvement in the affair. He is taking refuge in the political equivalent of the Fifth Amendment in this whole issue. Moving for a judicial inquiry is simply a smokescreen to try to distract attention from his culpability in this issue. All he needs to do is the right thing: explain to the Australian people his role in this whole tawdry affair! (Time expired)

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been a lot of discussion this week about emails and information technology and a range of other things. I have been sitting here thinking I would set up a new URL: www.noanswer.com.au. The ‘www’ in that case will not be World Wide Web; it will be ‘Where’s Wayne Week’. Is Wayne under the table? No. Is Wayne up in the gallery? No. Is Wayne out there talking to car dealers? No. Is Wayne on his mobile phone? If it is John Grant, yes, but otherwise no. Is Wayne at home, where he receives faxes about John Grant? Not at the moment. We know Wayne is in the building, but the Treasurer of Australia is afraid to defend his reputation.

It is rather cowardly, actually. You know what? In the years that I have been in this place, since 1996, it has always been the case that when there have been motions involving my personal integrity, I have had the courage, as has every other minister, to come into this place and defend my reputation. Not Wayne Swan. Not the Treasurer of Australia. The man who misled this parliament, who lied to the Australian people, is not here. He is not under the table, he is not up in the gallery speaking to the media, he is nowhere to be seen and now he is being defended by a boy.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, that last comment should be withdrawn in relation to the Treasurer.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which comment?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which comment?

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know which comment.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Which one?

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, speakers have been reminded in the last few days that such accusations should be by way of substantive motion and cannot be used in the MPI.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I did not hear any accusation. Would the minister explain to the chair?

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The accusation that the Treasurer had lied.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw; I am happy to say he has misled the House. There is no doubt about that. And he does not have the courage to come into this place and defend himself. Do you know what the irony is? Not since a Q&A program just after my appointment as shadow Treasurer has he had the courage to debate me. That was on that program. Ever since, they have been rolling out the minister for finance, and now they roll out the kid to defend the Treasurer. The Treasurer is not prepared to defend himself. He does not have the courage to defend himself. He cannot even answer the questions in this place. He refuses to give short, pithy answers that are true and factual. Why? Because the truth is damning of the behaviour of the Treasurer.

It is a disgrace. He is meant to be the person who is leading us out of the enormous financial pressure that everyday Australians are feeling. If he does not have the capacity or the courage to defend his own reputation how can Australians have faith in him to get us out of the economic difficulties that he is making worse for everyday Australians? The Treasurer is a disgrace. He comes into this place with great bravado and says that John Grant from John Grant Motors was treated exactly the same as everyone else. There was no difference, and yet, day after day, releasing emails—not him releasing emails, his own senators releasing Treasury emails, originally—in a Senate hearing. At that Senate hearing it was his senators, not his own Treasury department, that he got to do the grubby work. What a disgrace the Treasurer is. What a weak and insipid individual who does not have the courage to defend his reputation, who does not have the courage to tell the truth in this place, who is avoiding every bit of scrutiny. The 7.30 Report said they invited him on, he did not return their calls, he did not want to come on. Lateline said they wanted to interview him. No Wayne Swan, no Treasurer, no-one with the courage to go up on national TV and explain exactly what the relationship was and is with John Grant from John Grant Motors. No, not this Wayne Swan, not this Treasurer of Australia.

This man is not prepared to defend himself, nor to explain the details. He releases a few emails in the Senate hearing. Those emails point to the fact that the Treasurer received updates directly to his home in relation to John Grant, as I said yesterday in this place.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lucky John.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lucky John. What a privilege it must be for him to have the personal attention of the Treasurer, the personal attention that involves a mobile phone call with the Treasurer. How many we do not know, because this mob does not want to answer those questions. How many times did the Treasurer speak to John Grant? Well? It’s a good question, isn’t it? What about a good answer? That would help. But the Treasurer would have us believe that John Grant was treated like everyone else, except not one other car dealer received a personal telephone call from the Treasurer. And what about updates directly to the Treasurer’s home so that there is no doubt the Treasurer would have read it. How many car dealers out of 240 received that sort of treatment? Just one: John Grant from John Grant Motors, the mate of the Prime Minister, the benefactor of the Prime Minister. He received those updates, not once but four times. The emails went directly to the Treasurer’s home.

Then Treasury officials have the opportunity to engage in a discussion with a company on its hands and knees—Ford Credit, a company that comes directly to the government to beg for $500 million of guaranteed money. Do you know what, Madam Deputy Speaker: according to the leaked email—not leaked but actually released and tabled at a Senate hearing—in that meeting where they are begging for money Ford Credit were on its financial knees. They were desperate for money and would have fallen over but for the support of the government. It is now fact that, in that same meeting, Treasury officials handed over the mobile phone number of just one car dealer: John Grant from John Grant Motors, the Prime Minister’s benefactor, neighbour and obviously a mate of the Treasurer as well. The mobile phone number was handed over with a message: ‘He is an acquaintance of the Prime Minister. So, if you want $500 million, here is the mobile phone number of this acquaintance of the Prime Minister. Please take care of it.’ What does that smell of? That is what Ford Credit saw and they were the ones that came in begging for government help. Fair dinkum.

And it is not over yet because it is now emerging that all of these other dealers were provided with some form of financial advice and some of them were providing financial information to the government. Today we start to ask questions. Did John Grant have to do that? Did he have to provide detailed financial information to the government? It seems that he did not. It seems, from the government’s own tabled emails, that John Grant did not have the same financial reporting requirements as other dealers. What a surprise! In all of this, the reason we want a full open judicial inquiry is that there is a whole lot more to come out about John Grant, about John Grant’s relationship with the Treasurer and maybe even about John Grant’s relationship with the Prime Minister. There is a whole lot more to come out.

The Labor Party is running a distraction about leaks and emails and is running this scare campaign about the opposition having access to leaked cabinet documents. I have a joint press statement from Jenny Macklin and Wayne Swan dated 12 February 2004: ‘Leaked Cabinet Documents Show Family Squeeze’. It says ‘Leaked Cabinet documents obtained by the opposition’. Wayne Swan with a leaked cabinet document! He was in opposition, but now he is the Treasurer. What about these words in his own press release:

Clearly frustrated with the cover-up, government bureaucrats have taken matters into their own hands by leaking key cabinet-in-confidence documents.

What a fraud the Treasurer is. What a fraud. What a hypocrite. He needs to come into this place to stop lying to the Australian people about his role. He needs to defend his reputation.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is ironic that the opposition have raised this issue on 24 June. It is ironic because, on the same day in 1812, the role model of the Leader of the Opposition took the French army into Russia—and we all know what happened there. What we see yet again is the opposition going a bridge too far—the inability of the opposition to recognise that it is on the wrong track altogether.

I certainly oppose the proposition in this MPI for a number of reasons. I oppose it because, on the one hand, an immediate and full judicial inquiry into the OzCar affair is a complete waste of time and a distraction from the priorities of this nation and, on the other hand, it is a distraction from the examination of the conduct of the opposition and in particular the Leader of the Opposition. This is a complete waste of time. In preparing for this discussion, I had a look at some of the royal commissions that the previous government instigated. There was the HIH Royal Commission. I guess for the opposition leader I had better not go there. That cost $13 million. There was the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. What a waste of time that was—$70 million. There was the witch hunt over Centenary House—$4 million. There was the oil for food scandal. We all know what that reflected—$47 million to discover, I have to say, the failures of the now opposition, the then government. Their defence was in essence: ‘We did not know what was going on. We did not know about the $300 million in bribes.’ At least that justified a proper inquiry. Of course, most recently we have seen the conclusion of the equine influenza commission of inquiry. These are issues which warranted the interest of a royal commission.

We have the now opposition lining up this so-called OzCar affair against all those issues. We have heard no detail from the opposition about what sort of judicial inquiry they want. Do they want an ad hoc inquiry? Their words say: ‘An immediate and full judicial inquiry’. Clearly this implies an inquiry of the highest status—a royal commission, no less. The opposition, so desperate to divert attention from their own conduct, are in fact proposing a judicial inquiry which would see the need to find a judicial officer to hear the matter, counsel assisting no doubt and all the witnesses that will be required needing their costs to be paid as well as those of all the parties involved. And who would be the parties involved in a judicial inquiry? Would it be the Liberal Party of Australia and what they know about emails and the peddling of false and untrue documents to the press gallery?

We will also need to look at how long this expensive waste of time would take. We have to ask ourselves this question: why do the opposition wish to delay getting to the heart of the matter? There is an alternative, which this government has acted on from day 1. It said, ‘Let’s go to the Auditor-General,’ a perfectly sensible alternative to get to the heart of certain matters involved in this tawdry opposition scandal. If the opposition are saying that a full and immediate inquiry is necessary, what are they suggesting are the shortcomings of the Auditor-General? What is it they think will not be found out through that process which would warrant a completely wasteful white elephant witch-hunt? Indeed, the Australian Federal Police are involved in investigating these matters, many of which, once you clear the smoke, seem to emanate from the opposition and their conduct. What is it that the opposition is saying about the Australian Federal Police and their shortcomings or the evidence that the opposition thinks that they will not find which would warrant an immediate inquiry?

The reason why I have spent some time examining what they mean by a judicial inquiry is that it is clearly a waste of time. Under the Howard government, their inquiries cost tens of millions of dollars. Are they suggesting that this government divert tens of millions of dollars from the very necessary challenge of dealing with the global financial crisis just to retrospectively justify their witch hunt, which has proven to be a total waste of time? Another sinister motive emerges from the opposition’s MPI. Why delay the Auditor-General and the Australian Federal Police inquiries? Anyone with first year legal training would understand that a full and immediate judicial inquiry—if acted upon—would in fact delay the work of the Auditor-General and the Australian Federal Police.

We have today many important issues to deal with. I can tell you what the electorate is saying. The electorate thinks on one hand that the opposition leader seems to be very ruthless, very arrogant and a bit like his namesake from 1812, the Emperor Napoleon—determined to win office at all costs. Today there are many serious issues to deal with. Abolishing the detention debt regime is a serious issue worthy of the consideration of this parliament. Another worthy issue of consideration is not this MPI but in fact the delay in the Senate of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Overnight, we have had the World Bank report on and provide global forecasts about what is happening in the global economy. That is an issue worth discussing today. But did we hear one question from the opposition on that? Absolutely not.

Australians expect their members of parliament of all political stripes to be debating issues such as abolishing the detention debt regime, the delay to the CPRS and attempts to deal with climate change. They would reasonably expect us to look at what the World Bank is forecasting for economic activity. Indeed, concerned Australians would expect us to be dealing with and hearing reports about swine flu. But did we get one question from the opposition on the swine flu pandemic? Not one.

Indeed, we waited—with perhaps some misguided optimism—to see whether the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition tactics committee say, ‘My goodness: over the weekend, our case has turned to ashes’—if in fact they did not realise that beforehand. I saw some glimmers yesterday. I saw the member for Warringah start to concede that perhaps this matter had not gone in the direction that the opposition assassins had hoped it would. Indeed, I heard the member for Gippsland say yesterday morning on Sky TV that perhaps the matter had not been handled as well as it should have been. I agree. Were these smoke signals? Were these tea leaves that I could read? Were the opposition going to realise that Australians are unimpressed by a debate which has no substance and which was clearly triggered by a false and fraudulent email? Would the Leader of the Opposition have the capacity to say, ‘I got this one wrong; maybe we were on the wrong track’? Did they have that capacity? No. Instead of just using up five hours of question time and debate on Monday, they persisted yesterday and they persist today.

I caution the opposition, in following the opposition leader’s tactics, about something that they teach pilots to watch out for: the captain pilot syndrome. This is something that occurs when the captain of the aeroplane is a man or woman of such authority that even when the plane is heading into hazardous conditions—even when the plane could be in danger of stalling or falling out of the air—the rest of the crew do nothing. All too often, the black boxes from the recordings of aeroplane disasters show that the first officer, the co-pilot—because they are trained to have such respect for hierarchy—did not give a timely warning or try to arrest the inevitable and impending plane disaster. What we see is that the opposition have such a captain of their aeroplane. Even when we know that he is wrong, even when the opposition mutely know that he is wrong, even when the press gallery know that he is wrong and, most importantly, even when all of the people not in this place watching the games—the waste of question time and the opposition not dealing with the issues—know he is wrong, do any of them speak up and say, ‘Stop this unfolding disaster’? Not at all.

The priorities of this country should be jobs, jobs and jobs. That is what we are talking about. But we hear nothing from them on this. Instead, we hear, ‘Let’s have a judicial inquiry.’ The call for a full and immediate judicial inquiry in these circumstances is the last cry of a drowning man. It tries to take us away from examining the conduct of the Leader of the Opposition. The only inquiry that we need answered is: what dealings has the opposition leader had to do with the peddling of this false document? Why didn’t the opposition conduct due diligence? Is it that they knew it was false but still proceeded or is it that they were so careless and reckless with that truth and so blinded by the desire to become the government that they threw truth overboard, as they did with the children overboard scandal?

What we have seen in the proposition for this inquiry is a tale of sound and fury but no visible substance. This inquiry has not been spelled out or sketched out. It will be a massive and expensive waste of time and a delay on the proceedings. It is not the real issue of Australia. Australians want the opposition to come back to being an opposition, not just a pack of people peddling forgeries and fraudulent documents and wasting the time of this parliament and the nation. The opposition leader has demonstrated that he is not fit for the job which he currently holds and he is certainly never going to be fit to be the Prime Minister of this country.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this matter of public importance on a critical issue that the government has blocked discussion of all day. This issue started 20 days ago when the Treasurer stood at that dispatch box and said that Mr Grant was treated ‘just like everybody else’. As the Leader of the Opposition pointed out at the beginning of the debate on this matter of public importance, what has emerged is that John Grant, far from being treated just like everyone else, was treated like no-one else. No other car dealer received this treatment and personal contact from the Treasurer. When the Treasurer made that statement 20 days ago, he stood at that dispatch box knowing that John Grant had received personal and special treatment.

We have just heard speakers from the government in this debate who are speaking here, of course, because the Prime Minister will not attend an MPI debate and the Treasurer himself, as the shadow Treasurer said, is refusing to attend and speak on a matter of public importance that goes to the heart of his conduct. This is repeated behaviour from the Treasurer, and we have seen it all day today. At nine o’clock this morning the Leader of the Opposition sought to suspend standing orders with respect to a motion for a judicial inquiry. What did we see from those opposite? An immediate decision to cease debate and to prevent debate. That is the Labor Party’s first instinct. All day they have voted and acted to prevent any debate whatsoever. All through question time, and through every question time since this issue was raised 20 days ago, they have refused to answer questions.

We saw that today when the Treasurer was asked a series of specific questions based on emails that his own office had released. As the shadow Treasurer pointed out, the Treasurer, firstly for the Senate hearing last week, did not ask Treasury to release some of his emails—he did not release them himself—but he got Labor senators to release them. Very interesting. Then on Monday night he released a whole series of other emails. He was asked specific questions about those today by the shadow Treasurer. He was asked about an email from 17 April, distributed by his office, that advised the offices of the Prime Minister and his office that a car dealer is:

… very deep in debt, has little equity and has a marginal business case. It is high risk.

He was asked whether John Grant’s finances were assessed in a similar way. Of course, he did not answer that question. He did not answer the question about another email, on 24 April, again distributed by his office and again advising both of those offices, that said that a car dealer has:

… high debt and low equity. The principals … are a couple in their 60s and their kids don’t want to run a car dealership. There is no succession plan.

He was asked whether John Grant’s finances were assessed in a similar way. He refused to answer.

He did not answer the question because he knows the answer is that John Grant received very special treatment from the Treasurer. When the Treasurer stood in this House 20 days ago and said John Grant had been treated like everybody else, he knew that to be false. He knew that he had rung John Grant. He knew that there were a series of emails that had updated him. He had received them on his home fax. But he did not tell the House that at that time. That is why in this MPI debate we have heard from those opposite no mention of the Treasurer—no mention whatsoever. They have been calling for transparency but voting against the establishment of a judicial inquiry. At nine o’clock this morning, in the middle of question time, by those opposite who have spoken in this MPI debate and by the speaker who follows me, the Treasurer’s name has not and will not be mentioned. (Time expired)

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the matter of public importance put forward by the Leader of the Opposition in the following terms:

The failure of the Government to establish an immediate and full judicial inquiry into the OzCar affair.

The Leader of the Opposition has legal training; he is most famous for the Spycatcher case. So he understands the rule of law. He understands that the golden thread that runs through our system is: he who asserts bears the onus of proof. You cannot just get up and huff and puff, like the member for North Sydney, and engage in smear and innuendo, and expect everyone to respond to your proposals unless you produce evidence.

In relation to the matters that have been raised by the opposition, there are three inquiries currently underway. There is an Auditor-General’s inquiry—an Auditor-General who is independent and beyond reproach. There is an inquiry by the Australian Federal Police as to whether there were serious criminal offences committed in relation to a particular email. And we know that the Privileges Committee of the Senate is looking into the evidence that was given at the Senate hearing last Friday.

The problem for the opposition and, in particular, the Leader of the Opposition is that he cannot run or hide from the fact that he knows what our system requires: put up or shut up. Nothing of substance has been put up by the opposition in relation to either the Prime Minister or, indeed, the Treasurer. And, in relation to the Prime Minister, the AFP quite properly came out early and said that it was a forged document, to lay it to rest because it was having an influence in our national and political affairs. If the AFP had remained silent—as some on the other side have wanted and have asserted—and we did not know it was a forged email, can you imagine where we would have been for the whole of this week of parliament? These are very serious matters.

The problem for the Leader of the Opposition is that he thought he had a smoking gun. Why do we know that? He approached a staff member of the Prime Minister at the Midwinter Ball and the conversation he had was that of a man possessed who thought he had a smoking gun. As time has unfolded—and a week is a long time in politics—that smoking gun has blown his brains out. He has been acting like a man possessed ever since, trying to ratchet up the debate, which is why we are now seeing the call for a full judicial inquiry. Why? The Leader of the Opposition has said that he and the opposition will give full cooperation in the investigation of these matters. What does that mean? I will tell you what it does mean. It means that he has volunteered that, if required in relation to either inquiry, the emails of members of the opposition and others should be thrown open. He has laid the challenge down. You cannot go out and make the concession and then walk away from it. I am worried: what does it mean?

But I will tell you what his allegations mean to date: he has lost all credibility because he has not been able to substantiate them. At their highest they generate a political debate. We know that; we are big enough and ugly enough, those of us that have been here, to know that it will generate a political debate. But what does a full judicial inquiry warrant? It actually warrants evidence of conduct that brings it into that scope, because they are not easily granted—not when you have got an Auditor-General’s inquiry and an Australian Federal Police inquiry.

In relation to judicial inquiries, which carry with them, in effect, the Royal Commissions Act power to compel witnesses, on my quick count only five were granted in the 11½ years of the Howard government, and they were for substantially different affairs. And what have this government done? The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have opened up; they have allowed a full investigation of emails in their departments, and what is relevant has been produced. They have not obfuscated and hidden and walked away, as the former government did on a number of occasions. So I think it is just a nonsense. The Leader of the Opposition does himself and the opposition a disservice, because the way they are carrying on is all about the internal workings of the Liberal Party. Ratcheting up for a full judicial inquiry is about covering his back with his caucus.

Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.