Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go, you see. What I am pointing out, Senator Wong,—and I am sure you understand it—is the gross hypocrisy and indecency of this motion. Because if that were the standard applied to the Australian Labor Party over the past six years then the whole front bench would have been removed. Senator Wong knows, as everybody in this place knows, that the ministerial standards on this side are so much higher than they ever were in the Labor Party.

Let us be very clear. When there was a motion in this place to expose the documents the Fair Work Commission had gathered together, in great detail, relating to Craig Thomson, the former Labor member for Dobell, whose one vote was helping to prop up the Gillard/Greens government, the Labor Party and the Greens voted together to ensure that those documents would not be made available for public viewing. I wonder why? Because it would have exposed once and for all the gross dishonesty of Mr Thomson, who we now know has been found guilty by a court of law. So, please, I say to the Labor Party: don't insult the intelligence of our fellow Australians by pretending, on a broadcast day, that you somehow adhere to standards of ministerial and parliamentary behaviour that you came nowhere near standing by or abiding by during your six years.

In relation to Senator Nash, I understand that there were three allegations. First, there was 'misleading the Senate'. There was no misleading of the Senate. Senator Nash, on re-reading her Hansard, thought further information should be added to an answer, and that was done on the very same day. You could not be quicker and clearer and more conscious of your ministerial responsibilities than Senator Nash was when, upon realising there was a potential ambiguity in an answer, she came back into the chamber on the same day to clarify the situation.