George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Fifield, with his usual eloquence, ejaculates, the same day that Senator Scott Ryan exposed Senator Bob Carr's conflict of interest, mysteriously, the particulars of registration and in particular the place of business recorded in the corporate register were changed. What is even more alarming about this—if one leaves aside the blatant double standards we have seen on display this afternoon from a member of the Senate, if one leaves aside the contempt with which Senator Bob Carr dismissed his obligations to this place by dismissing it as a bit of a paperwork, if one leaves aside that fact that one of the most senior ministers of this government is caught in an obvious conflict of interest between his private interests and his public obligations, if one leaves aside the suspicious fact that no sooner was this fact revealed by Senator Scott Ryan than Senator Bob Carr sought to suddenly change the location of the place of business while not divesting himself of it, and even if one leaves aside the fact that Senator Carr continues to be in flagrant and, it would seem, proud violation of the government's own standard of ministerial ethics; not only is this a serious matter, leaving all those considerations to one side—is that the Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard, has been aware of this fact from the start and she has suffered it to continue. She has allowed this to continue.

The Prime Minister of Australia is—among his or her many responsibilities—the ultimate arbiter and enforcer of ministerial standards. We heard from Senator Collins how ministers in the Howard government breached those standards. What Senator Collins did not tell us was that on each and every occasion—and there were a few occasions, particularly in the early years of the life of that government, when ministers fell into breach of those standards, even, as in the case of our former colleague Senator Brian Gibson, for purely technical breaches of those standards—Mr John Howard came down on those ministers like a tonne of bricks. And every one of them was required to pay the ultimate political price: the sacrifice of their ministerial career, because the high standards that Mr John Howard demanded of his ministers were standards of which he would brook no compromise.

On this occasion, a much more serious breach by a much more senior minister than any of those who fell into trouble under Mr Howard—a direct breach of the stipulation in section 2.9 of the Standards of Ministerial Ethicshas been committed. That breach itself, for reasons that must be obvious to even the dullest senator in the chamber, is a plain conflict between private interest and public obligation and has been known by the Prime Minister since at least 24 May 2012, if not earlier, when it was exposed in Senate estimates by Senator Scott Ryan. What has the Prime Minister done to enforce her own ministerial standards? What has the Prime Minister done to ensure that one of her most senior colleagues is not in a conflict between his private interests and his public duty? She has done nothing.