Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

But if you can live with that then go ahead and do it. So every single decision I have made as a Western Australian Labor senator—proudly—and every decision I have made in terms of hospitality, accommodation, travel or whatever, as I do as the Chair of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, I declare. I want people to know where I have been. I want people to know who I have been meeting with. Whether I am in the United States with the great Teamsters union—it does not matter where I have been, because I always walk into this place and deliver a speech about what I have been up to. I believe that is the only way.

My dear old father, who is reaching his 84th year, said to me back in the seventies in his broken English, 'Never, ever lie to me.' I said, 'Why is that, Dad?' He said, 'Because you don't have a good memory, so I'll catch you out,' and I have lived by that creed. But, I hear the attacks on Senator Dastyari, who is a very influential member of the Australian Labor Party, the Australian community and this Senate, because he slipped up. Senator Dastyari slipped up, and no-one feels worse about it than Senator Dastyari. And the silly thing is he slipped up on something that has no defence. We cannot defend it, and Senator Dastyari is the first one to tell you he could not defend it. He thought it would be okay if he declared it. I am not going to sit here and put the boots into Senator Dastyari. I am going to put my arm around him because there is a lot worse that happens on that side of the chamber. I will never, ever defend corruption. I will be the first one out there. I will throw rocks at you if you are called corrupt, don't worry about that, and you have the ability to do it to me too, but let's get to the crux of some of the accusations coming here.

Senator Dastyari has repaid the money to the Chinese business, which he should. He has also had a $3½ thousand haircut because he has had to pay the travel allowance bill, which he has done. Good on you, Sam. Well done. You have owned up. You have done it. Let's get on with it, because we politicians are an embarrassment to the Australian populace at the best of times, but to stand here undressing ourselves as we are doing now, how can the Australian people have confidence in us? It hurts us, because the majority of us in this place and the other place are decent, hardworking people. We are decent members of the community, and most of us come into this building with our hand on our heart, wanting to deliver the best outcomes for the people that have actually walked into a ballot booth and put a 1 beside our name.

People think this is a clever display of Australia's parliament working. It is absolutely disgraceful. But you had better be careful when you start throwing mud, because it comes back and, when it comes back, in my experience watching it in this place for 11 years, it comes back at twice the rate and twice the speed. I am now, unfortunately, going to put myself in the political gutter because you lot started it over there. You want to have a ding-dong battle. Just remember one thing: if you are going to go into a punch-up in the pub, you are going to get a bloody nose. So let's start on the member for Curtin, shall we?

I will tell you why I picked the member for Curtin: it is because there are accusations against Senator Dastyari in relation to Yuhu and Huawei but in 2012 the member for Curtin, Ms Julie Bishop, received airfares, hospitality, accommodation and a tablet computer from Chinese tech company Huawei. You know what? I am not going to repeat myself, but I have received flights and accommodation too. I have visited Huawei twice—proudly. 'No worries; show us what you do. Telecommunications? Great. That's how the world works.' I never, ever was highly regarded enough to get a MediaPad tablet. Anyway, that is fine; I think Huawei worked out I would have enough trouble turning it on, let alone doing anything else with it!

Ms Bishop is the Minister for Foreign Affairs, so Ms Bishop is the face of Australia in the international community. Fine. But Ms Bishop is also very, very active in the Western Australian branch of the Liberal Party. She is well known. It is documented she wears some fantastic, really smart clothing and jewellery, and it is normally accompanied with a photo showing that it has been donated by so and so. And, okay, that is fine as long as she is putting it on her register. That is okay; you can do that. But she has also managed over the last couple of years to attract no less than $600,000 in donations to the Western Australian Liberal Party—just the WA branch, of course—from three Chinese companies. You might say, 'Yeah, big deal.' And it should not be a big deal. It should be all declared, and people should know straight away where this money has come from. But it becomes a big deal when they want to attack the integrity of Senator Dastyari while hiding behind a pile of manure on their side.

So let's have a look at the $600,000, where it came from and who they were. I will get to the companies in a minute. We have to be very mindful of a newspaper article of 26 August, written by Gina McColl and Philip Wen, which said:

Several of the donations have been obscured by the channelling of funds via executives or related companies, or by the donors' failure to disclose them to the Australian Electoral Commission, in apparent breach of Commonwealth law.

What has Ms Bishop got to hide? She has gone out and got $600,000. What have the WA Liberal Party got to hide? They set the rules. We sit in here and we have the argy-bargy. Every couple of government terms, they have a blue over donations—in fact, we were blueing over foreign donations before we left here in May, for that successful double dissolution election! That is tongue in cheek, Mr Acting Deputy President. The article went on to say:

A spokesman for the AEC acknowledged a loophole in Australia's disclosure laws, saying: "While the commission can seek compliance, overseas donors cannot be compelled to comply with Australian law when they are not in Australia".

Ms Bishop refuses to respond to questions about how she handled potential conflicts between her responsibilities as a party fundraiser and as a foreign minister, a very senior minister. The article went on:

A spokesperson said that donations to the WA branch were "a matter for the party".

No, Ms Bishop, it is not a matter for the party. It is a matter for the people of Australia. That is why we have laws that say very clearly that, if you put your hand out and receive financial donations to do whatever you want to do with them, you have to actually say who they have come from and where they have come from. We all live by that creed. Why is the foreign minister any different? I will tell you why I think the foreign minister is different—and I would be rapt if there were a tsunami of Liberal senators who came in here and attacked me, because I tell you what: one against 30 will be a great number, because what I have to say is undeniable. So, while you are flinging mud on that side, let's really roll up our sleeves.

The foreign minister, Ms Bishop, has got form in this area. I remember, coming from Western Australia, we used to have a RAAF jet that was put on. It was negotiated between the Senate and the House of Representatives because, back before my time, Western Australia did not have a direct flight to Canberra. So the RAAF jet would fly from Canberra on a Sunday afternoon. It would land in beautiful Perth and it would wait for the senators and members to stroll out and to say goodbye to their families. It would give them a golden opportunity—because senators and members of all states really do give a commitment to be here and they miss out on a lot of family stuff. We do not whinge about it—that is what we are elected to do. But us West Aussies, if we wanted to, could jump on that direct flight and come to Canberra. That is fine. Have I been on the RAAF jet? Yes, I used to utilise the RAAF jet. It was fantastic. When my kids were still at home, absolutely I utilised it, so I could get Sunday afternoon at home. As my kids grew up, left home and starting having their own lives, I stopped using it—about five years ago. Now I use Qantas or Virgin.

The RAAF jet got exploited. A previous defence minister in this building thought it was a great idea to put the RAAF jet on a day before the first day of sitting of the Abbott government, to put all the Western Australia Liberals and their wives on board. We used to take staffers if there was room, but there was no room for staffers—it was a big family affair. That is nice for the families, but what is wrong with catching a $2,000 Virgin or Qantas flight? I will tell you what it used to cost. It was about $33,000. So the 'gravy plane', as it was named, through some diligent work by the Western Australian reporters here in this building was exposed. It was absolutely rorted. It was embarrassing. So it was canned.

But guess what. All of a sudden, back in December 2015—so we are not talking about long ago—Ms Bishop was in Perth and she was required—I am not making this up; it is all written out here—to be back in Canberra the next day for a cabinet meeting. Lo and behold, surprise, surprise, cabinet ministers actually do spend a lot of time in Canberra, because that is what they are paid to do. They also have a very, very handsome remuneration package, as we do. They get an extra $100,000, or something like that—and most of them work hard enough and they deserve that, and good luck to them. Some are actually stealing it off the taxpayer, but that is another story. So what did Ms Bishop do? She said she had something to attend in Perth. We all have something to attend to in Perth on Sundays. But Ms Bishop thought it was a fantastic idea, as the foreign minister, to roll the RAAF jet out of political cotton wool, knock off the mothballs, get it catered up with some food and drink so it could leave Canberra on a Sunday arvo, with no-one else on it, whoosh over on a beautiful flight across the Nullarbor, land in Perth and sit around—tick-tock, tick-tock. Then, 'Here come the foreign minister and the boyfriend,' to get on the taxpayer-funded $30,000 slush ride back to Canberra so she can turn up in the nation's capital to do what she is normally paid to do, while the rest of the cabinet, the rest of the senators and the rest of the ministers get out there, get on their computers, ring Qantas and Virgin and say, 'Book our flights.'

I would love to hear Ms Bishop's excuse. She got away with this. She is the same minister who quashed it for the Western Australians. I did not give a damn. I thought, 'Quash it.' I would rather be on a Qantas jet, because I can defend the $2,000, when you really start thinking about it getting exploited. But for those with young families, good luck. They have all lost it. But, my goodness me, it is all right for the queen of largesse to spend $30,000 of taxpayers' money so she can stay in Perth a little bit longer—and then plonk the boyfriend on.