Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The amendment is in relation to standards. If somebody wants to come into this chamber and try to impose standards on others, I think it is more than appropriate for us to consider the standards they apply to themselves—such as raising money on the basis of saying: ‘This is a rock I found in the Franklin River. Who will buy it at auction?’ You get $1,000 for it and never disclose who was the purchaser of that rock, and then the person gives the rock back to Senator Brown at the end of the auction. Just imagine if a minister of the Crown were engaged in such funny money deals. Senator Brown would be the most outraged of any individual, with all the puffed up, faux outrage that we have now come to expect from him. Senator Brown is the one who gets personal loans from lawyers in Hobart and discloses them a long time after they should have been disclosed. It is about time the Australian people knew the facts about Senator Brown, whenever he puts his hand on his heart and asserts integrity in public life, money and public disclosure. If we were to behave in the way that Senator Brown does, there would be outrage, especially from our friends in the media.

We believe that the standards that have been applied are the highest that have ever been applied. One thing the Australian people can be assured of is that we will never descend to the sorts of rock auctions that Senator Brown has engaged in and his failure to disclose. When he disclosed to the Senate about his donations, he only put names—sometimes only with initials—so you had no idea where the people lived. We now know that some of those people were overseas donors. I think it is about time that Senator Brown got his own house in order, before he tries to assert these standards and before he tries to clean the few specks of dust that may exist in other people’s houses.