Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, this is the most outrageous abuse of the processes of this parliament that I have seen in my long years here. I see Senator Faulkner in the chamber now and I am surprised that Senator Faulkner has not spoken on this high farce—this absolute abuse of power by the Palmer United Party in relation to this.

As I said earlier, I have some thought that perhaps the debate might be worthwhile having. I would just love to get a bloke named Hedley Thomas into the inquiry under parliamentary privilege. I read some of what Hedley Thomas writes about different issues. He is a very interesting sort of journalist, but I suspect that a lot of what he would want to write has been excluded by the legal advisers to his paper. But under parliamentary privilege, who knows what Mr Thomas might be able to inform us of about happenings in Queensland? So, on one hand, I am almost convinced to support this. But I would not because it is an abuse of the Senate powers.

I just want to go through the details of the provision. I will start with the motion setting up the committee itself. In this chamber the coalition has 33 members. My arithmetic on the run is not all that good, but I think that is about 40 per cent of the Senate. What are we going to get on this committee? Twenty per cent of the voting rights on this committee! By contrast, the Palmer United Party, which represents—what?—about five per cent of the members of this committee, is going to get 33 per cent of the voting members of the committee, and they are also going to get, on the motion of Senator Lazarus, Senator Lazarus as its chairman! That in itself would raise eyebrows anywhere around.

As I said to Senator Lazarus before, if he needs the money, which he will get as chairman of a committee, then perhaps he should not be driving the two-door Mercedes-Benz vehicle which is apparently his and which is parked in the Senate car park. Senator Lazarus clearly does not need the additional money for being a chairman of a committee if he is able to drive a fairly smart, latest-model, two-door Mercedes-Benz to parliament. So I cannot understand why that is.

Mr President, if you had any suggestion that this was to be a serious investigation into any operations that the Commonwealth is associated with, why would you set up a committee that had one member of the government, two members of the Labor Party—who only have 25 senators here—one member of the Greens and one member of the Palmer United Party? That, in itself, it shows what a farce this whole exercise is.

Just looking at the terms of reference: one of the terms of reference is :

… identified breaches of funding agreements or conditions—

of Commonwealth funds paid to the state of Queensland.

Well, that is a great vote of confidence in the Australian National Audit Office, isn't it? That is what the Australian National Audit Office is about. You do not need a Senate inquiry to determine if there have been breaches of funding agreements; that is what the Australian National Audit Office is all about! Clearly, Labor, the Palmer United Party and the Greens have absolutely no confidence in the Australian National Audit Office—an office, I think, which over many years and many governments has had the united support of governments and parliaments in the past. Apparently, that does not apply any more.

One of the terms of reference is:

… the proportion of the Queensland State Budget derived from Commonwealth funds, …

Why do we need a committee to work that out? I will give Senator Lazarus a calculator and he can work that out himself. Those figures are clearly available on the budget papers both governments so why you need a Senate inquiry and all costs and paraphernalia that go with it to work out the proportion of the Queensland state budget derived from Commonwealth funds is completely unknown to me.

The inquiry also wants to work out whether any funds have been used by the state of Queensland for state government advertising or party political purposes. I am pretty relaxed about that except to say that if Senator Abetz's amendment—or was it Senator Mason's amendment that he foreshadowed—that the inquiry go back beyond the can-do Campbell Newman government to the Anna Bligh government is passed—and I cannot think of any reason why it would not be—I would be very interested to see what Commonwealth funds from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments were used by the Bligh government for advertising of party political purposes.

Mr President, I might say—and you might give me some assistance—that at some stage I want to move the amendment suggested by Senator Mason: that the date be a date that Senator Mason mentioned—