Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 851 standing in my name for today. The terms of the amendment were circulated in the chamber earlier.

Leave granted.

I move the motion as amended:

That the Senate—

(a) notes the allegations made by the daughters of the late Dorothy Hewett that she pimped her then-minor daughters for sex;

(b) further notes that one daughter described their home as 'a brothel without payment' and the sisters named perpetrators including:

  (i) the late former Labor speechwriter Bob Ellis,

  (ii) pop artist Martin Sharp, and

  (iii) British erotic photographer David Hamilton;

(c) also notes that the University of Western Australia runs a $10,000 annual prize named the 'Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript', which is an award supported in 2019 by The Saturday Paper and the Copyright Agency; and

(d) in light of the seriousness of the allegations, calls upon the Education Minister to seek assurances from the University of Western Australia that it will:

  (i) rename the award, or

  (ii) in the event that naming rights are a condition of the prize, to suspend the award until the allegations are investigated and resolved.