Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Standing orders must be suspended and this motion must be debated because the answers the Prime Minister gave in question time today could only be described as evasive and tricky. The Prime Minister must explain every aspect of the Labor Party's deal with the member for Dobell because, without the deal, she would not be Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must explain every aspect of the Labor Party's arrangements with the member for Dobell because, by keeping the member for Dobell in parliament, by paying his legal fees and avoiding his bankruptcy, she maintains his vote in this parliament. Without that vote, the government would fall and she would not be Prime Minister.

Nothing could be more important for us to debate after question time today than the Prime Minister's hold on power with the pillar of support that is the member for Dobell. This is properly a matter for the parliament to consider. The reason why the parliament should consider it can be found in the admission in the first article about this matter, in a long-forgotten story in the Daily Telegraph in August 2011 by Andrew Clennell, repeated today in the News Ltd press. When Labor sources were asked why they paid the legal costs of the member for Dobell they said:

We paid because if he hadn't he'd be bankrupt …

Why is that important? It is important because if he was bankrupt he would not be able to sit in the chamber, and if he did not sit in the chamber and vote for the Labor Party this Prime Minister would not hold office today.

So we are in a very murky area. Some people would call it a quite inappropriate conflict of interest for the member for Dobell—him relying entirely for staying out of bankruptcy on the deal that he has made with the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales to pay what is hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

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