Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I don't often disagree with my Liberal colleagues. Senator Duniam talks about the Canberra bubble. I make the point that it is a fly-in fly-out bubble, to the extent that there is one. It is not a result of the hardworking residents of the ACT.

Can I go to the issues that have been raised. Before I go into some detail about Senator Nash and the position she's outlined, which has been widely canvassed, including by the Attorney-General on the record recently in committee, I would say, on my own behalf and on behalf of the government, that when we talk about Minister Nash we are talking about a fine minister, a fine representative of regional Australia and of New South Wales. I think that anyone who has dealings with Minister Nash knows not just that she is a thoroughly competent and hardworking minister and representative but an honest and decent representative. That is something absolutely worth putting on the record, as we have the opposition trying to in some way call that into question with their line of questioning.

Minister Nash has outlined the process she went through on being advised over questions around her citizenship. She has acted absolutely properly and thoroughly, dealt with it on the best advice and put this issue to the High Court in the proper way. It's fair to say that not everyone has taken that approach. We heard from Senator Moore and Senator Pratt just then saying, 'Table the legal advice.' That's fascinating in the context, and it seems almost designed to go after one of their colleagues, Senator Gallagher, who today we heard talking about the fact she had legal advice on her Ecuadorean citizenship. I'm not aware of that legal advice being made public. I'm not aware of it being tabled. So, again, we have the hypocrisy of the Labor Party saying Minister Nash should table her legal advice but there is no need for that kind of transparency from Senator Gallagher in relation to her Ecuadorian citizenship. Senator Gallagher's legal advice may well be very strong—we can only take her word for it, not having seen it—but there is a fair dose of hypocrisy here from Labor senators in calling for the tabling of legal advice when one of their own, who is not subjecting herself to consideration by the High Court, is not putting on the public record the legal advice she relies on to say that she is not a citizen of Ecuador, or indeed tabling it in this place. Senator Gallagher has referred to legal advice but not, I note, to advice from the Ecuadorean embassy. That's obviously a matter for her, but I won't take the hypocrisy from the Labor Party on this issue and say, 'Minister Nash has to table her legal advice, when she is going to be subjected to the High Court's judgement on this issue, but Senator Gallagher does not have to do the same.'

I go that point of hypocrisy when it comes to Bill Shorten. Bill Shorten has been out there on this issue saying—