Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You could be forgiven for thinking that yesterday was the worst day for opposition senators in the Australian Senate for a very long time. I am looking at Senator Polley from Tasmania, and I will come to her ridiculous claims about double taxation in a moment. You had to witness what we just saw in the Australian Senate over the last few moments. Senator Carr fell foul of his own strategy. He used a procedure that he thought was going to embarrass the government and disrupt proceedings, but what happened? He fell foul of his own procedure and it blew up in his face. Let's talk briefly about the substance of question time today. What is revealing is not what opposition senators want to talk about—their claims about higher education funding and their false claims about double taxation—

Senator Polley interjecting—

I will come to double taxation in a moment, Senator Polley. I am looking forward to debating you on double taxation. I want to share with you what the Daily Telegraph said about double taxation, Labor's plan to modify the carbon tax and Labor's plan for a new electricity tax. Let me get to that in a few moments. What do Labor senators not want to talk about this afternoon? They do not want to talk about their ridiculous claim earlier today that somehow the government was going to breach its caretaker conventions with regard to government advertising. Why was it a ridiculous claim? First, because we have given a clear commitment that we will not breach the long-established caretaker conventions, but, more importantly, because Labor did breach them when they were in government. In a most horrendously shameful way, Labor breached the caretaker conventions at the last federal election. I know a little bit about this. I was the senator at the Senate estimates committee process who asked David Tune about the caretaker conventions. Let me share this for senators who are not familiar with him. He is one of Australia's most well respected public servants. At that Senate estimates committee hearing in May, he was the secretary of the Department of Finance—a very significant and considerable area of the Australian Public Service.

I asked him rather innocently about the caretaker conventions and whether they had been breached in the past. It is no wonder that Labor senators are silent, because in that silence is their embarrassment and deep shame. What did the secretary of the Department of Finance, David Tune, say? He said he was directed by the then Special Minister of State—and I will come to him in a moment—to breach the caretaker conventions. It is not a rumour; it is well documented; the documents are here. He was directed by the then Special Minister of State to breach the caretaker conventions with regard to a government advertising campaign on people smugglers. What makes that more remarkable, as if that were not remarkable enough? The Special Minister of State was none other than the member for Isaacs, Mr Dreyfus QC, who was also the Attorney-General. So, not only was he the senior law officer in our country; he actively directed—those are not my words; they are David Tune's words—the secretary to breach the caretaker conventions. That is a most shameful act.

It is no accident that Senator Gallagher asked one question and not three. She realised that she had trod on a landmine. I will give this to Senator Gallagher: she was not in the Australian Senate when that matter was revealed at Senate estimates. She can be forgiven for that, but she cannot be forgiven for her poor research skills. She should not forgive the people on that side who gave her the question and set her up. It was a lazy allegation this morning from Labor that the coalition would breach its caretaker conventions . The Leader of the Government in the Senate made it very clear today that we will not. Why should Labor senators care so much? Because they were the people who actively breached the caretaker conventions and instructed, directed, David Tune to breach the caretaker conventions. It is not an allegation and it is not a rumour; it was revealed at Senate estimates. Yesterday was a bad day for the Labor Party in the Australian Senate. Today has turned out to be a worse day. (Time expired)