Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It will not come as a surprise to honourable senators that I am pleased with the report of the privileges committee. I thank all senators involved in it for their detailed consideration of the matters that were before them. At the outset, I would make the observations: (1) this is an unanimous report, (2) this is a committee that has a majority of Labor senators and, (3) without being too unkind, I think it would be fair to say that if Labor senators did find a way clear, subject to all the appropriate proceedings of the privileges committee, to make an adverse finding they may well have been tempted to do so.

The fact that they did not is very pleasing to me. I think it would be fair to say that I engage robustly in the activities of this parliament and in its committees, but at all times I trust I abide by the rules and also by the conventions. In a document that I have only had the opportunity to peruse now for 20 minutes, I have noted the findings on pages 100 and 101. I note that the committee unanimously found:

Senator Abetz did not give false or misleading evidence to, or cause any improper interference with, the hearing of the Economics Legislation Committee.

‘He’—that is, me—’did not know at the time’ that what he was dealing with was a false document:

The committee does not dispute that Senator Abetz was acting in good faith in using material supplied by a source he did not doubt.

Further on, the committee found:

There was no inappropriate pre-arrangement by Senator Abetz of questions and answers for the hearing of the Economics Legislation Committee.

They also found that the hearing of the economics legislation committee:

… was an entirely legitimate use of Senate procedures to explore a matter of possible misfeasance.

When I addressed the Senate on this matter on 11 August 2009, amongst the comments I made were these:

I would point out to the Senate that talking to witnesses before they give their evidence is common practice, so is asking questions provided by a third party. Every senator knows this is true.

Whilst the Hansard does not disclose it, I did pause after that to see—and we had a full Senate chamber at the time—whether any senator was willing to interject and put themselves on the record in denial of that proposition. Not a single senator did and, of course, the committee has now found that there was ‘no inappropriate pre-arrangement’.

This has been a particularly distasteful experience for me in relation to the matters I found myself involved in. Allegations were made by some fellow senators and put on the public record, asserting that I had been into manipulation and involved in inappropriate pre-arrangements et cetera. I refer in particular to the interviews undertaken by Senator Milne and Senator Cameron. They may like to reflect on that. Some journalists took to their keyboards and to the airwaves with a vengeance, making all sorts of allegations. I have got a funny feeling that those same commentators and reporters will not be giving the findings of pages 100 and 101 of this report the same sort of publicity as they did when they sought to condemn and besmirch me. I daresay that is the way that public life is conducted, unfortunately; but if you are willing to make the allegations in your columns and programs, once the findings are made that you are wrong, then I would invite you to give equal airspace and column inches to say, ‘Well, we made the assertions but, in fact, they are now found to be not the case.’

I thank the committee for their diligence and, in particular, the Labor senators who very graciously looked at this with an open mind and came to the findings that they did. It is a relief to me and in particular to my family. I thank the Senate.

Debate (on motion by Senator Brandis) adjourned.