Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Wong) and Senators Collins and O’Neill today relating to proposed amendments to citizenship laws and to recent media reports concerning people smugglers.

What an act it was by the Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate. Unfortunately, it does not look like the senator can hold a candle to his leader, Senator Abetz. In his short time as acting leader, he has already alienated the crossbench and he has taken a frighteningly cavalier attitude towards Senate estimates by being more interested in the poem My Country than in his responsibilities to it, and more interested in his collection of classic Australian bush poems rather than in the budget situation. I think he was very aptly described the other day by my colleague on this side of the chamber Senator Cameron, who described him as the equivalent of Mulga Bill on his bicycle riding into the ditch, and that is where this government is taking Australia—into dangerous territory where we will suffer injury.

The arrogance of the Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate was absolutely on show again today, with the crossbench voting against the government, voting with the Labor Party and the Greens to institute two new inquiries to see what is actually going on, because this minister is determined to hide and to cover up from the Australian people every one of the dirty deals that characterise their actions with regard to international relations. The senator is facing divisive issues close to home, with his own cabinet colleagues selling him out to the media. There are at least some voices on the other side that will speak, it seems, to tell just a little of the truth to the Australian people, who this man is seeking to mislead.

The senator refused to answer questions today about why he has excluded his own colleagues from receiving information from the Solicitor-General. Such hubris, such arrogance—that is the characteristic of this man that dominates every response in question time. Why? We have to ask. Does it show a lack of trust in his own colleagues? It would seem so. Perhaps it is an even greater problem for Senator Brandis that he is so on the outer now that his gaffe-after-gaffe prone activities have his colleagues not wanting to have anything to do with him. How much longer can the senator expect to continue on in this way?

I will go to the questions that were asked by Senator Collins first. The misrepresentation of the words of the noted silk, Mr Bret Walker SC, are very important, but they were merely brushed aside as irrelevant by the arrogant Attorney-General in his responses today. Mr Walker actually stated:

My report does not provide a justification for what they intend to do—

'They' being the government—

It is not what I said nor what I think now and anyone who claims otherwise is wrong.

That is Mr Walker saying that the Attorney-General is wrong; and, indeed, Mr Walker is correct. Mr Walker casts doubt on the capacity of the government even to do the due diligence of checking reports carefully:

I doubt many of those citing my report have read beyond the one paragraph they refer to. That does not bode well for mature consideration or lawmaking.

What we saw on show here today was not mature consideration, and it was not a fair effort by any stretch of the imagination in answering the questions that were put to the Attorney-General today.

Senator Wong asked questions about why the foreign minister of the country was excluded from receiving advice from the Solicitor-General on the constitutionality of the proposal to strip citizenship from Australian nationals. Things are so dysfunctional, so bad, in the government ranks that they are hiding information from one another, let alone hiding it from the Australian public. I turn now to the questions that I asked about reports published in Australian papers today: Indonesian police reports, saying that people smugglers were actually paid by Australian officials to turn back the boats—recorded interviews, photographs of cash, reports about vessels crashing on reefs. These are facts that are on the public record in Australian newspapers. Instead of answering those questions, we have a government that says: 'The media reports are promoting discord.' They are promoting a question for the government—a question and a request that they tell the truth. We are relying on this government to finally come forward and actually speak the truth for a change.