Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

The position of Attorney-General is as the first officer of the Commonwealth. It is effectively the highest law office in Australia. As quoted by Ross Ray QC, president of the Law Council of Australia, to the International Bar Association conference in 2008:

… the Attorney-General has traditionally been seen as having a special independent public interest responsibility within government; that is, as distinct from a responsibility to protect the Government's interests.

Tasked with these responsibilities, the person appointed by the government to this role must conduct themselves with the utmost decency and be beyond reproach.

Successive attorneys-general, regardless of their political affiliation, have recognised that although frequently involved in the rough and tumble of politics, the integrity of the role of Attorney-General should never be compromised. Why? Because they recognised that as the Attorney-General they were the chief defender of the integrity of the Australian court system.

Nicola Roxon is currently Australia's Attorney-General. Attorney-General Roxon's behaviour in relation to what has now become known as the Slipper case and, in particular, given her political interference in the case following the recent disclosure of the raft of crude and disgusting text messages sent by Mr Slipper, confirms for all Australians that Ms Roxon is fundamentally failing in the discharge of her role as the Commonwealth's No. 1 law officer.

Her behaviour also highlights the gross hypocrisy of the Labor Left when it comes to accusations of alleged misogynist behaviour. The position now conveniently taken by Attorney-General Roxon in relation to the Slipper case that she cannot comment on it because it is still before the courts—even though when it suited her political purpose she was more than happy to do that—highlights the sheer hypocrisy of the Labor Party and the double standards that it applies when measuring its own members' behaviour against alleged behaviour by members of the coalition and others.

But as Labor frontbencher, Jason Clare, has said:

Politicians are going to be judged on what they say and do …

And as Attorney-General Roxon has also confirmed, 'This judgement is merely part of politics'.

I say this to Ms Roxon, who is very good at handing out judgement when the political situation suits her: judge not lest ye be judged yourself. This is, of course, the woman who as far back as 2002 said in relation to the then Deputy Speaker, Ian Causley, after he made an allegedly offensive remark to her:

Women in many workplaces around Australia have to put up with this sort of behaviour, I'm in a position to do something about it by publicising it - I don't think it is right to just let it go all the time.

And yet when confronted in black and white, as she has been, with the crude and grotesque text messages sent by Mr Slipper to Mr Ashby commenting disparagingly on women, Attorney-General Roxon's silence is deafening.

This is despite saying at a press conference on 15 June 2012 that in relation to the Slipper case:

I think it's unrealistic given the public interest in this matter that there will not be commentary. And the art, if you like, from my perspective, is that we do that in an appropriate way.

Attorney-General Roxon set her own standard in relation to commenting on these matters:

Australians are now reading some of the most vulgar and demeaning utterances when it comes to women that I have ever seen. And again the silence from those on the Left of politics is utterly deafening, as is the silence now coming from Australia's Attorney-General. Attorney-General Roxon needs to understand that you cannot have it both ways: you are either appalled by this type of behaviour or you are not. As Attorney-General you do not get to pick the comments that you comment on when it suits you politically. As Attorney-General, Ms Roxon chose in the Ashby case to attack Mr Ashby when the matter was before the courts; and yet in relation to the revelation of the text messages sent by Mr Slipper, which are now on the public record, she now chooses in her role as Attorney-General to be silent. Australia's Attorney-General has no position.

As evidence of Attorney-General Roxon's failure to discharge properly the role of Commonwealth Attorney-General, she has now been forced to apologise to the Federal Court and to the Australian people for giving special treatment to Mr Slipper—treatment that no other Australian is afforded—by allowing him to enter the Federal Court through a back door to avoid media scrutiny. This was a move confirmed by Attorney-General Roxon's office and criticised by the Federal Court judge, Steven Rares, as undermining public confidence in the Australian court system. Justice Rares, according to a newspaper report, said that it was important that:

… justice should not only be done, but be seen to be done.

Attorney-General Roxon's decision to give preferential treatment to Mr Slipper shows a complete contempt for her role as the Commonwealth Attorney-General, and a failure to appreciate that the role has a special independent public interest responsibility within government—that is, as distinct from a responsibility to protect the government's interests.

What was Attorney-General Roxon's response to the criticism of Federal Court Judge Rares? The response was this: 'My decision was inadvertent'. How does the Commonwealth Attorney-General make a decision that is 'inadvertent'? The fact is that the Attorney-General does not. In this case the Attorney-General made a very deliberate decision, and it was made for nothing more and nothing less than political purposes. Clearly, Ms Roxon, despite her role as Attorney-General, is more interested in protecting the government's interests in this case than in discharging her independent public interest responsibility.

Perhaps, however, the most offensive part of what has occurred in relation to Ms Roxon's role in the Slipper case is what is set out in the Australian newspaper today: that Attorney-General Nicola Roxon herself personally intervened in the sexual harassment case against Peter Slipper by briefing lawyers defending the Speaker whose misogynist and degrading attitudes to women have been exposed in the trove of sexually explicit texts. Based on these actions, whether Attorney-General Roxon understands the responsibilities of her role and is fit to hold the role of the first law officer of the Commonwealth must surely now come into question.

Ms Roxon has recently said in relation to opposition leader Mr Abbott:

It is fair game for me or any other minister … to hold him to account for his public behaviour and his public comments.

But despite these words, as a leading woman on the Labor Left side of politics, Ms Roxon fails to hold Mr Slipper to account. Again, we all know why: because of the double standards that those on the Left side of politics apply when it comes to judging their own. Mr Slipper, as we know, is a creature of the Labor Party. The Labor Party owns Mr Slipper. Attorney-General Roxon and the Prime Minister—who, I note in the motion before the other place, has again failed to condemn the actions of Mr Slipper—should now come out and admit that Mr Slipper's views on women make his position as Speaker untenable.

This is something that the coalition has done. We have unequivocally condemned Mr Slipper's views on women and it is time for both Attorney-General Roxon and Prime Minister Gillard, and all other Labor women, to condemn them as well. The Australian public has the right to ask from Labor consistency on issues of principle. You cannot be ambidextrous. You cannot on one hand allege misogynist behaviour based on the flimsiest and most cooked-up premise, whilst at the same time refuse to condemn the vile and wholly repulsive texts that have been sent by the Speaker. Labor is merely political point-scoring and Attorney-General Roxon is using her role as the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Australia to score political points when it suits her. She is an embarrassment to the role of Attorney-General.