Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. You did ask those questions yesterday. I have been seeking information in relation to those questions and some related ones that were asked yesterday. I apologise that I haven't yet provided the particulars to the chamber of those that you have asked, which I received just prior to question time. I am still securing answers on some of the other matters.

In terms of the particulars of the questions that you have asked, I have consulted with the President, and the Prime Minister with the Speaker, because access to the building is, as you would appreciate, Senator Waters, managed by the presiding officers, not by the government. In relation to the question of a sponsored pass or lobbyist pass, I am advised by the President that the individual did not have access to such a pass and, therefore, obviously nobody had sponsored or acknowledged the facts that you have identified.

In relation to overall access to the building, in terms of being signed in, the President has advised me that, as you would appreciate from signing people in yourself, they are manual, handwritten logs of people who are signed in. Obviously for pass issues there is an electronic record, but the singular visitation is a manual log that is kept across the building. It would, obviously, be a very resource intensive effort for DPS security to go back over those manual logs and try and ascertain the names of any individuals who had entered the building. Of course, there are also public areas of the building for which people are free to come and go in and for which no record is kept. I'm unable to say categorically that he never re-entered the building, but I can say categorically that he was not issued with a sponsored pass, nor did he gain sponsored access, in any knowledge, to the building subsequent to his termination.