Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, isn't the scandal involving Senator Cash just unravelling more and more and more? This is a scandal that has gone on for 18 months now, and, just when Senator Cash thought that she was through the worst of it, that she'd be able to put a big whiteboard up in front of herself and skate through until the election, the truth is finally coming out in the Federal Court of Australia as we speak.

In the last two days we have heard extraordinary evidence from the former senior media advisor to Senator Cash, who infamously had to resign after his leaking of confidential police information was exposed through media reports and Senate estimates about 18 months ago. Now, in legal proceedings before the Federal Court brought by the Australian Workers' Union over this illegal raid, we have heard damning evidence from the former senior media advisor to Senator Cash about what he and his colleagues from this government were up to.

In summary: over the last couple of days what we have learnt in evidence given under oath, with risk of perjury charges if it's not true, from the former senior media adviser to Senator Cash is that initially he didn't want to answer questions about who was involved in this leak because he was concerned that he would incriminate himself. An admission of guilt if ever I've heard one. Then, when forced, he identified Senator Cash's former chief of staff as the source of the information which he then leaked. For many months now we have heard from Senator Cash and other members of this government that it was only her former senior media adviser involved in this—it was only one rogue; it was only one bad apple who was out there involved in this leak. Well, now we know, as a result of this evidence in court, that it involved two former staff members of Senator Cash. And not just two junior staff members; her former senior media adviser and her former chief of staff were in on this.

The evidence got even more extraordinary today in the court when we learnt from the evidence of the former senior media adviser that part of his motivation in leaking this information was to damage the reputation of the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten. What we've all known on this side of the chamber for some time now has now been spilt out into open court: this confidential information about a police raid was leaked to the media for political purposes, to damage the reputation of the opposition leader.

Now, I remembered evidence we received from the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police after this leak. He was extremely unhappy about the leak having occurred. He said that he always hates leaks about police information because it puts the lives of his police officers in danger. What we now know is that the former senior media adviser to Senator Cash was prepared to leak information about a police raid to the media and thereby put police lives in danger only to damage the reputation of the Leader of the Opposition. This is the kind of behaviour you expect in a banana republic. This is the kind of behaviour you expect in some sort of dictatorship, not in the country of Australia. But, unfortunately, that's where things have got to under this government.

Finally, the other evidence we saw in court today was where the former senior media adviser to Senator Cash admitted that it wasn't only her former chief of staff who was in on this; it actually crossed over different ministerial offices. He talked about this, and conspired to leak this information to the media with the former senior media adviser in the office of the then Minister for Justice, Mr Keenan. This involved not only two staff members of Senator Cash but also a second ministerial office, and who knows what else we're going to find out by the time the day is out let alone by the time we get to the evidence from Senator Cash on Friday. This new evidence goes directly against what Mr Keenan told the House of Representatives, where he claimed that no-one from his office was involved in this raid.

We've seen again today a complete unwillingness from Senator Cash and Senator Cormann to answer questions about this scandal. Initially, they said they didn't know. Senator Cash said she didn't know about this evidence in court, just like she conveniently didn't know about the leak in the first place—I don't think anyone believes that. Then they tried to write off this evidence: 'Oh, it's just evidence given to a court.' Well, it's actually evidence given under oath with the risk of perjury charges. The government knows how serious this is, and it's only going to get worse.