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

The short answer to your question is: no, it does not. Might I remind you, Senator McCarthy—I do not think you served in the parliament when Mr Robb was the Minister for Trade and Investment—that Mr Robb was an outstanding Minister for Trade and Investment and one of, if not, I daresay, the greatest ministers for trade Australia has ever seen and is widely acknowledged as having been so, including by some on your side of politics. It was Mr Robb, after all, who presided over the signing of not one, not two, but three historic free trade agreements with South Korea, Japan and China—all of which eluded the previous Labor government, which pursued those agreements with no success over six years.

Mr Robb is now pursuing his postministerial career, and it is up to Mr Robb, just as it is up to all former ministers, to ensure that it is compliant with ministerial standards. I am completely satisfied that Mr Robb is a man of integrity, he is a man of honour, he was an exemplary minister and he is having an exemplary postministerial career.

I might remind you, Senator McCarthy, that Mr Robb is not the first former minister to have had a successful postministerial career. Former Labor trade minister Craig Emerson started up his own Asian regional consultancy business even before he had left the parliament.