Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. How often has this government come into this place and the other place and lectured us about the importance of protecting people in workplaces from exposure to sexual harassment? How often has that been a theme hit by this government? Apparently a person's right to be free of sexual harassment in a workplace does not extend to people who try to enforce that right who might at the same time be undermining the Labor government's hold on power. That is what it amounts to: the right is compromised if you happen to be an enemy of the state or an enemy of the Labor government. That is extremely unfortunate.

When the Attorney-General entered the parliament in 1998, in her maiden speech she said:

We must not weaken the system.

By that she meant the legal system.

We must not weaken the system to the extent that we leave the powerful to run roughshod over others or, worse, resort to violence and intimidation to get their way. I am committed in the next 26 years to further strengthening our country's institutions.

This week and last week she has not strengthened them, she has weakened them. That is the sort of thing than anyone would be held to account for but particularly the Attorney-General of Australia.