Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Is that the same Geoffrey Watson who made an inappropriate statement in questioning in the New South Wales ICAC? Is that the one? Ah, that's interesting, isn't it? It's a question of judgement, and Mr Watson's judgement is incorrect. In fact, shadow Attorney-General, your judgement has been fairly poor on these sorts of matters, I'd have to say.

A government member: What's the score?

The score is 8-0. So, if we're talking about judgement in these sorts of matters, I had a very interesting occasion. I quickly read through the Legal Profession Uniform Conduct (Barristers) Rules, which apply, of course, to someone in your eminent circumstances, being a Queen's Counsel. 'QC', by the way, doesn't stand for 'quality control' in this particular instance. They say:

A barrister must not allege any matter of fact amounting to criminality, fraud or other serious misconduct against any person unless the barrister believes on reasonable grounds that:

(a) available material by which the allegation could be supported provides a proper basis for it; and

(b) the client wishes the allegation to be made ...

You would think it's the case that, if you referred eight matters and zero of them resulted in anything at all, that would indicate a lack of material providing a proper basis for it. So this is about judgement. The judgement that was exercised quite properly by the Prime Minister was that the call was perfectly appropriate. He informed the House that he was going to make it. He informed the House that it was made. The judgement of the police commissioner, who was at the other end of the call, was that it was appropriate. My judgement is that it was appropriate. What you have determined is that you don't think it's appropriate. Your judgement is simply awful—absolutely awful. I know that you're very interested in the next time that you might be able to exercise your judgement, perhaps as a judge in a Court of Appeal.

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