Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

Might I also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment, Mr President, and indicate to you that I thought the previous President did a very good job in the chair. I wish you well. I note that your interest in constitutional law won't go astray with this government. I trust they will actually ask you on certain matters, because clearly there is need for substantial improvement in the advice that's being tendered to this government. I also note that you're a student of the IPA in Victoria, which puts you at odds with me in many respects, but I might suggest that you're part of the minority in the Liberal Party that's actually read a few books! I trust that you're still able to communicate to your colleagues on a range of matters, even though you are in that chair. I thought Senator Parry acted properly as the President of the chamber while in the chair. Unfortunately, the way in which he was treated and the manner of his departure has cast a serious stain upon his legacy, and that is a matter of some regret. It has also cast a serious stain upon the sincerity with which this government has dealt with the handling of the dual citizenship crisis.

If you look at the development of this question in recent times, it started of course with the Greens senators. It was said initially that this event occurred because of a vendetta that had been pursued by a legal eagle. It was suggested that there'd been some sort of search done to identify the citizenship entitlements of senators, particularly amongst the Greens. When that was first revealed, I remember it was the Deputy Prime Minister at the time who said that these were black and white questions, that this was carelessness on behalf of the Greens and that their failure to deal with these questions demonstrated, essentially, a recklessness on their part. He went on to say that this was a straightforward matter and it was just a question of them not being competent to deal with their paperwork.

The government went through a transformation in its approach as it became clear that there had been a few in the government whom that same opprobrium could be directed at, in terms of the failure of government senators to actually undertake the due diligence that's required when one fills in the nomination forms that are required by the Australian Electoral Commission, in terms of your requirement to state that you are in fact eligible to stand for parliament as a candidate in accordance with the Australian Constitution. We are all asked, in the process of nominating, to actually identify whether or not we are compliant with the Constitution.

I know that, on our side of the political divide, there is a rigorous process of vetting, including the production of birth certificates, to verify the claims made about people's right to stand—a vetting process that goes to these issues of section 44, in terms of both citizenship requirements and the other requirements of section 44 in regard to holding any office of profit under the Crown. This is a process which I think has been in place in the Labor Party now for many, many years. In the many elections that I've now contested, this has been the process that I've had to conclude on every occasion. It arose during the Cleary case, which is now 25 years ago, so it's not new. The requirements to fulfil one's obligations are not unknown, and have not been unknown for a very, very long period of time.

In fact, the transformation within the government went so far as to suggest that it was the Liberal Party that was able to get its paperwork in order but that the National Party—Senator Williams, you will recall this—were the country bumpkins and the fools who couldn't even fill in a form properly. That was the suggestion that was being made, until of course we discovered the event with Senator Parry. Then Senator Parry was criticised by the Prime Minister. He was vilified, I thought, by the Prime Minister, by suggesting, from Jerusalem, how disappointed he was that Senator Parry had not made his predicament public some time ago. They were the Prime Minister's remarks.

We can understand the difficulty Senator Parry would have had in being the person signing the referrals to the High Court for six of his colleagues in this chamber and knowing, as he would have, his own personal circumstances. So I was surprised when I saw that this man, whom I regard as being honourable in his dealings, a man no-one could describe accurately as a stupid fellow, could be signing off on these declarations to the High Court when his own personal circumstances were in such a contradiction, and that he hadn't taken any action. When he was vilified by the Prime Minister from Jerusalem, I was not surprised that, very shortly thereafter, there came the riposte that he had in fact discussed the matter with colleagues in the government. Senator Fifield, of course, knew for weeks.

Now we are told, 'Well, of course, it was a private conversation,' and that a private conversation absolves you from upholding the law. That's what we're being asked to consider today: that Senator Fifield was given this information in a private conversation and had no obligation to tell the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Government in the Senate or the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate because it was a private conversation and, under the ministerial code, information that comes to you in a private conversation is to be kept secret. That's the proposition that we're asked to accept here today. What an extraordinary notion—that breaches of the law are to be kept secret if they're given to you on a confidential basis! I'm sure Senator Parry, as a former policeman, would appreciate the irony of that proposition. I'm sure that proposition, down at the Centrelink office, would be understood every day of the week: 'Oh, I can't possibly take that forward, because it was given to me in a private capacity, in a private manner. I don't tell anyone about breaches of the law.' Ignorance is suddenly an excuse? You imagine telling the copper, 'Oh, I didn't realise the light was red; I thought it was green.' That seems to be the defence this government's presenting, and when people know differently they say, 'Oh, it was given to me in a private capacity or in a private conversation.'

Well, Minister, under the ministerial code, that won't wash. You have an obligation to share that information. The manner in which you share it is up to you, and anyone in any ministerial school will understand that proposition. You have an obligation. What did Senator Brandis do when he was told about it? Straightaway he directed his chief of staff, 'Get onto the Prime Minister.' That's the information that's on the public record. Senator Fifield, why didn't you do that? Why didn't you provide that information to other people within the government? Under the ministerial code you are required to do so. There is no exemption in the ministerial code to say, 'Oh, private information—I can't do anything about it.' At law, that's not a defence that you're able to pursue.

In fact, what I suspect you did say when you were given the information, Senator Fifield, is: 'Let's wait and see. We've got this legal advice here that says, "Don't worry; it'll be all right." The Prime Minister has got up in the parliament and he's directed the High Court to come to a conclusion. "It shall so rule," is what he said. We've got this red-hot opinion from the Solicitor-General that says, "All of this will go away."' My bet is your advice effectively was this: 'Wait and see.' So, when Senator Parry raised his concerns with you, you said, 'Just wait and see, and it might just all go away.'

The fact that the High Court made a unanimous decision made Senator Parry's position completely untenable. What he knew, and what I suspect he had known for some time, was that the letters that he'd been signing off meant that he too was in a totally untenable position. What I can't follow, Senator Fifield, is why you didn't understand that, given your political experience and given your understanding of what actually goes on in the real world of politics and what the dangers were for the government in having the President of the Senate placed in these circumstances.

We know the situation is such that the Australian people are having great trouble coming to terms with this issue. They can't understand why it is that, if you're on the pension and you're out by a dollar, you're hounded by the Department of Social Services and Centrelink's onto you like a shot, and, if you fill in your form incorrectly, you're in trouble with the taxation department, yet, when you stand for this parliament and you fill in your form incorrectly, we say, 'That's all right; we've got some smarty legal opinion that says it will be all right.' Furthermore, repaying all the back pay and all the other entitlements you had will be waived when you get caught out. People are worried about that. They think you should actually pay a bit more attention.

Now, I understand that not everyone does know who their father or their mother is. But I tell you what: most people in this place do. To suddenly discover, 'Oh, I didn't realise they were born overseas'—that's nonsense. To suddenly discover that, and you didn't realise there was a problem, is nonsense—complete nonsense. And the Australian people know it. Ignorance is no excuse for anybody else in this country, and it's no excuse in the parliament; particularly when we had these propositions put to us by the High Court 25 years ago. This conservative government has been only too keen to appoint black-letter lawyers to the High Court and now complains bitterly about a black-letter interpretation of the Constitution.

This is not really about whether or not we've had senators and members of parliament filling in their forms. For the government we had two different points of view. The treatment of Senator Canavan was entirely different from the way Mr Joyce was treated. There was the approach taken by the senators, with the exception of Senator Parry, and the approach taken by Mr Joyce. What this is really about is a government that's just desperate to hang on to the last vestiges of office. I actually think it was quite unfair and unreasonable to make the point about former Senator Parry's garden and dinners. It was nothing to do with that. It was about the government's desperation to hang on to political office.

This is an issue for the Australian people, who understand that this is shambolic because the government is without authority, without direction and without principle. It's the Prime Minister who built his whole repertoire around the issue of being committed to one thing but has now come into office and abandoned all of that. The government's adrift. The government doesn't know what to do except to desperately hang on. It will duck and weave at every possible opportunity. So what do we find? The government is now crumbling. Every day there's further evidence of it. There are leaks within the cabinet suggesting that the authority of the Prime Minister is evaporating, to the point where the Treasurer, Mr Morrison, has been attacking the Prime Minister's proposals in regard to citizenship disclosure. He says, 'It would be such an own goal.' He opposed it because it would cost the government the next election. Mr Morrison is saying that the government's handling of this matter makes him think its very survival is at stake. That's very much the case, because the government really has very little else to defend anymore other than its own survival.

We know, however, that public trust is actually very, very important. Trust in democracy is very much at stake. I don't mean that in a petty way about the way in which we elect institutions. It is about the institutions themselves and the authority of those institutions. It's not about whether a Liberal or a Labor government is in office but that the institutions of the parliament remain central to the Australian understanding of democracy. The method by which we elect people here and the fact that so many people had to be replaced highlights the enormous damage that's done by this issue. It goes, however, much, much further than even that, because we're now beginning to understand the impact that it's having in terms of the economy at large. Increasing numbers of people are saying it's beginning to affect this whole issue about confidence and the way in which our society is able to be managed, and it's going to the ability to drive investment and decisions about the future of the country itself.

I know that there has been this difficulty emerging about the aura that develops within a government. Senator Fifield, if you're not prepared to tell the Prime Minister or even the Leader of the Government in the Senate that the government has a problem with what's happening with Senator Cash—and I think Senator Farrell's point here was very valid—then it affects everything else. You had staffers sitting there at Senate estimates all day watching a minister say things which they knew to be untrue. We all know how closely ministerial offices monitor Senate estimates. On at least six occasions Senator Cash was asked a direct question about the role of her office in briefing the media about a raid on a union office. We know the politics behind it—there was an Australian Newspoll that week—and the games in trying to salt the evidence. But what we also know, this suggests to me, is that ministerial advisers take it upon themselves to not tell the minister that she is misleading. That becomes a defence, doesn't it? 'Oh, I didn't know. I didn't know.' Yet people sitting there watching, who of course do know, choose not to tell—and that's the problem. Senator Fifield, that's why ministerial codes are there. You actually have to have leadership whereby people actually look to the minister and say, 'That's the example we should follow.' The consequences of not doing that are profound. They're profound for the body politic, they're profound for the trust in this place and they're profound in terms of the consequences for people's confidence in the future of this country.