Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

But you do not know about them. So there are segments of part (b) of this motion that are endemic in this place—that is, the prearrangement of questions. It continues:

… and the answers to be given for an undisclosed purpose,

I am not quite sure what you mean by ‘an undisclosed purpose’. What are you referring to?

We also already have Senator Heffernan’s inquiry, which is an issue. I must admit this is something that has been brought more to my attention lately. Senator Heffernan has already got an inquiry up. I know how inquiries work. It does not matter what it says in the book; it will venture into the areas that need to be dealt with, as people find that appropriate. They will draw the strings that are attached to the areas that they want to pursue. So there is already an inquiry afoot. We already have an inquiry afoot and this would be the second inquiry into more or less the same matter.

What will we achieve at the end of this? I truly and honestly believe that there is nothing Senator Abetz has done that was nefarious—foolish, possibly; nefarious, no. I would have been so proximate to it that I would have to have some semblance of an idea that that had gone on, and I do not. If that is not correct, kick me out of the joint.

At the end of this inquiry—if it goes forward—is the Senate going to be a better place? Is there anything in this that will bring about a better outcome, a better process or the instilment of some authenticity and virtue back into the committee process so people have more confidence in it? No, there is not. Apart from the political outcome there will be no real outcome whatsoever.

Has there been public ventilation of just about everything on this issue? Yes, and I seriously believe that not one issue will come to light that we do not already know about. If you believe one will, what powers are you going to use to try to bring it out? You will have witnesses before you, but Godwin Grech, who this relies on once again, will not be there. Veracity of a point or an assertion will be unable to be obtained because the crucial link will not be present.

So what is the motivation? The motivation has to be political. Having been part of the process before, I have seen what Senator Fielding brings up. He is right. At another inquiry I was at Senator Cameron received emails from Senator Conroy with questions for Senator Cameron to ask Senator Conroy. He foolishly did it with a camera behind him watching every move he made. We are looking at one and the same actions, but one has now apparently turned into something insidious. If it is insidious for one, it is insidious for all.

We should rule it out or, as Senator Minchin said, have proper disclosure at the front-end of any inquiry of your relationship to any of the people who stand before you to be questioned. You cannot, obviously, drag in people from outside, but, if you have a relationship with someone you are about to question or if you are portraying something that is not completely the case and you are trying to mislead the people on the other end of the cameras, then we should do it across the board—let us make a move to rule it out everywhere, not just focus on one particular event. On that issue, I think Senator Fielding has a reasonable position to put forward.

I have given this strong thought. As I have stated, I am a voting member of the Senate economics committees. I am very proud of that. They are great committees. We do a lot of good work. I was present when this whole process was in train. I do not think we lauded ourselves in glory; it was a complete and utter debacle. There is nothing wrong or criminal about that; it was just, to use an Australian saying, a complete and utter stuff-up. I do not think that should be the substance of an inquiry.

I and the National Party will not be supporting this motion. We gave the Labor Party the option to come forward with something broadbased that was going to take the Senate to a better place and to which Godwin Grech was not crucial in affirming where the truth lies. Unfortunately, this motion fails all of those tests, so we will not be supporting it.