Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

Did he report it to whip Bushby? Well, we don't know. My understanding is that, in addition to reporting it to Minister Fifield, he reported it to other members of the government. I'd ask those members of the government to come forward and indicate what their knowledge is about this, what they knew about it and when they knew about it. I think the issue that this raises is the fact that when Senator Fifield became aware of this information he did not seek to contact the Prime Minister. I think we have to ask the question: why did he not? I mean, this was a hot topic. Everybody was talking about it. In fact, every conversation that you have at the moment is, 'Is your citizenship okay?' So, it can't have been that the issue was a low priority. It must have been a high priority for Senator Fifield, but he hasn't told the Prime Minister.

Now, why didn't he tell the Prime Minister? Did Senator Fifield deliberately decide to keep this to himself and not disclose it to other members of the government or to the Prime Minister? Did he think it wasn't sufficiently important that the President had just told him, 'I've got a problem with my citizenship'? We need an explanation as to why Senator Fifield didn't report this significant event for our constitutionality.

Senator Brandis, both in introducing this reference and earlier today, said that the circumstances surrounding Senator Parry's resignation and referral to the High Court are well known. Well, I don't think that's right, Mr President. I don't think we know even a fraction of what went on in this circumstance. But we do intend to find out. And we do intend to continue to pursue this matter until we get some answers from the government.

But I return to the question as to why Senator Fifield didn't tell Mr Turnbull. Why didn't he tell him? Because he didn't think he had to? There were no obligations? Well, of course, one of the obligations of all ministers in the Prime Minister's Statement of Ministerial Standards—I refer to clause 1.3(iv)—is to uphold the laws of Australia. Now, if there were a potential breach of an important law—section 44(i) of the Constitution—why wasn't the first thing that Senator Fifield did to go to the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, and say: 'Hey, we've got a problem here. How do you think we should handle it?' And so far, Mr President, I don't think we've had a satisfactory answer to that question.

Was it because he didn't trust the Prime Minister? I note the polls today. I don't go much on reading the polls; I don't take that much notice of them. But was it because the Prime Minister's standing within his party is so low that Senator Fifield didn't think he needed to tell the Prime Minister about this matter? Because after all, what did the Prime Minister say when he found out about this? I'll go back to that, Mr President. He was quite clear. He said: 'He chose to delay his reporting of it. He should have reported it much earlier.' Well, Senator Parry did report it. He reported it to Senator Fifield.

Now, Senator Parry, as you would know, Mr President, was a very good president. But also, before he went into parliament he was a policeman—he was a copper. Of course he knew the difference between right and wrong, and the right thing for him to do was to tell a senior member of his government, 'Look, I think I've got a problem here.' Why that senior member of government didn't then proceed to tell the Attorney-General or perhaps the Deputy Leader in the Senate or, more importantly, the Prime Minister of this country is a mystery. I think it reflects badly not only on the minister that he didn't report this matter to the Prime Minister but also on the Prime Minister that he didn't think it was of sufficient importance that the President of this place refer the matter to the Prime Minister. I think it's not only the minister's standing that gets downgraded as a result of this, and that of the Prime Minister; the fact of the matter is that everybody is talking about this out in the community. They'd prefer us to be talking about other things—a whole lot of other things, like energy policy, the cost of living or even same-sex marriage. They would prefer us to be talking about all of those things, but what are we focused on? We're focused on citizenship and the citizenships of MPs.

Now, there is a developing pattern in this government, and we saw it during estimates week. Senator Cash thought she would get a jump on the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten, referring to the new Registered Organisations Commission. Somehow the media found out about the fact that the Federal Police were going to launch a raid on the Australian Workers' Union office. In fact, at one stage there was this farcical scene where the media turned up before the AFP and thought perhaps they had got the wrong information and had to ring their media source just to confirm that the raid was going to take place. As we know, the media were tipped off about this raid.

Senator Cash and one of her staffers, Mr De Garis—I don't know if he's in any way related to Mr Ren De Garis from the South Australian Legislative Council—had a meeting with Mr Turnbull to discuss how it might have been that this information was leaked to the media. What happened at that meeting with Mr Turnbull? Well, nobody mentioned to the Prime Minister that they had leaked the information, that Senator Cash's office had leaked the information. Nobody thought to tell the Prime Minister. So here we have Senator Fifield not thinking to tell the Prime Minister: 'Hey, we've got a problem with Parry. We're going to have to refer him because he's in the same situation as Nash.' It must have dawned on Senator Parry at that point that there was a problem.

So Senator Fifield didn't refer to Turnbull, but now staffers in this government have decided they don't need to tell the ministers or the Prime Minister. Even in personal meetings with the Prime Minister, they decide they don't need to tell him things. What does it say about this Prime Minister that his ministers decide they don't need to tell him anything? Is his standing so low not just in the polls but among all his colleagues that they don't think they need to tell him anything? But staffers in this place have decided they don't need to tell their Prime Minister information! How much worse does it get than that? You understand the Senate, Mr President, as we've heard this morning. I don't think it gets much worse than that. And there is a pattern in this government. If you know something that should be reported to other more senior people in your party, you keep it a secret, you don't tell anybody. My problem with this procedure is not just that it reflects bad governance on the part of the government; it reflects badly on all of us in this place.

I think at some point the Prime Minister must say, 'I'm the Prime Minister of this country and I need to know these things.' I'll repeat what he said—and I can understand why Senator Parry would have been pretty upset when he saw the Prime Minister on TV. I think Mr Turnbull was overseas; he seems to spend more time overseas getting selfies with Mr Trump, Mr Putin and all those sorts of characters. But what did the Prime Minister say when he found out about Senator Parry? It must have been a shock to him. He thought he'd got this out of the way; he thought the High Court had dealt with it and it was back to business as normal. What did he say of Senator Parry? He said:

He chose to delay his reporting of it, he should have reported it much earlier …

Well, he did report it! He reported it to that bloke over there. He said: 'Mate, I've got a problem, I'm in the same situation as Nash.' So what did Senator Fifield do about it? I hope at some stage we get to find out. I hope we do get to find about it, because at some point in this government ministers have to realise that there are standards which ministers have to be held to.

In the Westminster system there are standards that ministers have to satisfy. I don't think Senator Cash satisfied those standards when she decided to throw one of her staffers under a bus instead of herself taking responsibility for the nondisclosure to the Prime Minister. At some stage, you've got to say, 'Look, there is some level of accountability in this government.'

Senator Fifield knew about Senator Parry's situation for months. We don't know exactly when he knew about it but we know he knew about it for months and took the decision not to—it would appear he hasn't told the Prime Minister. Senator Brandis has indicated that Senator Fifield didn't tell him. Senator Cormann has indicated that Senator Fifield didn't tell him. We do know that Senator Parry told other members of the government, so somebody else over there knows more about this than they are prepared to say.

When you evaluate all of that—and the community is going to think about this over the coming week while this issue is being discussed in the Senate—it will become increasingly clear that Senator Fifield's position is untenable. You can't get that sort of information—