Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I read with interest the terms of this urgency motion. I wonder where Senator Ludwig has been, because, in all of the remarks that he made in those 10 minutes, scarcely did he refer to maintaining the integrity of the Register of Senators’ Interests. For the enlightenment of those senators who are present in the chamber—apart from one of the officials at the table, I think I was probably the only senator in the chamber who was here when the register of interests was brought into this chamber—it was brought in in the last years of the Keating government.

A Labor Party motion to introduce a register of interests into this place had been on the books for almost 10 years. Do you think they did it during those 10 years? Not on your nelly. They never bothered to bring that motion forward. After they had made a register of interests for the House of Representatives, the motion lay on the Notice Paper in this place for 10 years. In the dying days of the Keating government, in order to do some grubby deal with the minor parties, they decided to bring it in under pressure from the minor parties. These people did not want a register of interests in this place. For 10 years they left it sitting on the Notice Paper without bringing it in.

Senators opposite talk about transparency. What transparency did we have in this place in the time of the last Labor government? We went to the 1996 election with a $96 billion debt and a $10 billion deficit that nobody knew about because there was no Charter of Budget Honesty and no ministerial code of conduct. Their good friend Senator Richardson and a number of others could get up to their pranks in this place without any scrutiny because at that time there was no register of interests, no ministerial code of conduct and no Charter of Budget Honesty. And you, Senator Ludwig, have the hide to come in here and talk about transparency.

The ministerial code of conduct works. That is why Senator Santoro was forced to resign. The Register of Senators’ Interests works.