Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Finance and Administration (Senator Minchin) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to senators’ interests and ministerial responsibility.

It took six questions to get there but finally we got Senator Minchin interested and wound up. What did we get? We got: ‘Let’s slur everybody else because we cannot defend our own standards.’ That is fine; I am happy to debate that, but what we had is: ‘The only defence we have got against the failure of our government to have standards is to say, “Other people do it too.”’ That is the only defence he had. Earlier Senator Minchin gave a very spirited defence of his factional mate Senator Santoro. They have been close for a long time. The Prime Minister has been close to the senator for a long time. Why? Because they keep beating up on the small ‘l’ liberals, the wets, inside the party. Their factional loyalties saw Senator Santoro promoted to the ministry, and no-one claimed he was promoted on merit. No-one on that side of the chamber said it was based on merit.

Putting that to one side, we have the leader in the Senate, Senator Minchin, defending his mate—a very spirited defence—and trivialising completely the offences that Senator Santoro has confessed to. Senator Minchin dismisses it all as a minor problem of failing to declare his interests and says that we all ought to move on. He has been sacked as minister. There is no problem. There is nothing else that anyone ought to worry about. Senator Scullion said he has paid the highest price of all, when explaining that people who misrepresent their financial dealings who are social security recipients actually go to jail. I think some of them would think they paid a bit of a higher price when they got jailed. But the key questions are—