Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Regional Development (Senator Nash) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to her status as a senator and as a minister.

I started question time yesterday asking Senator Nash a question in relation to whether or not she has the right to still sit in cabinet and make decisions when there are questions over her citizenship. Yesterday she tried to lecture us in relation to respect for Australians. Today I ask the minister: when is she going to show respect to the Australian people? We know what the political objective is and why she is still in cabinet. That is clearly to protect Mr Barnaby Joyce, in the other place, and also to protect the Prime Minister and his government because they have such a slim majority in the House of Representatives. What it also clearly established is that we have a Prime Minister who is too weak. He is not a strong leader, as he tries to tell us. He is very weak because he won't deal with this issue.

Senator Nash was asked a series of questions by senators Bilyk, Collins, Pratt, Kitching and O'Neill. She was not able to—or wouldn't, actually—answer any of those questions. One of the questions which is fundamentally important to the Australian people is: from whom did she seek her advice that she is relying on to be able to sit in cabinet and make decisions? When was she given that advice? We haven't asked for her to table that advice, but we have a right to know. When did she seek that advice, and who was that advice sought from? We have advice from some of the best legal minds in this country that says there is a clear doubt as to whether or not Senator Nash is eligible to sit in cabinet. We have clear advice that Mr Barnaby Joyce is ineligible to sit in the other place. When Senator Nash was trying to deflect these questions, she referred to the important work that she has done for regional Australia. But what she didn't say, and what she refused to answer, was anything about the $1.7 billion budget she oversees as a cabinet minister. Of those grants that she is able to make throughout Australia, how many will be challenged if she is found to be ineligible to sit in the chamber?

These are serious questions, and the Australian people deserve answers. It is not just about who she's giving those grants to; it is about whether those who have applied for these grants and are rejected then challenge her right to make decisions if she's deemed to be ineligible to sit in this place?

There is a huge grey cloud—in fact, it's a black cloud—hanging over this government. They are seen for what they are. The government are governed by a Prime Minister who is weak and indecisive. We have a government that is led by someone who does not even have control of his own caucus. He promised at the last election that he would have an innovative, agile, adult government. When, Mr Prime Minister, are you going to bring that government to town? Quite clearly, the way these issues with Senator Nash and Mr Barnaby Joyce have been dealt with has not given any confidence to the Australian people. Others in this place who have questions hanging over their citizenship and their eligibility under the Constitution have stepped aside from the cabinet. Senator Canavan has stepped aside, because he knew that morally it was the right thing to do. The cloud is clearly over Senator Nash. She's not a very effective minister anyway, and you'd have to be pretty desperate to be propped up, as she was this afternoon, by the likes of Senator O'Sullivan—somebody who has a very dark cloud over him as to whether he's entitled to be here, because his family companies have gained financially from the Commonwealth government, which make him ineligible to sit in this place. We have a minister who is still sitting in the cabinet and who should go to the backbench but is failing to do so, and we have a Prime Minister who is so weak and so beholden to others that he won't deal with this issue. (Time expired)