David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of my party to indicate we won't be supporting this political hatchet job the coalition is trying to make of a royal commission that's barely had the ink dry on the appointment.

If you want to read an extraordinary proposition from the coalition and show just how politicised they see Dennis Richardson, if you want to talk politics, putting Dennis Richardson in the heart of a royal commission into security agencies because he is, to quote this motion from the coalition, 'the one person capable of properly investigating intelligence failures'—you are kidding me! This bloke, Dennis Richardson, has so many conflicts of interest. He was the director-general of ASIO for the better part of a decade, he was the secretary of Defence and he's been the go-to person for the coalition and Labor since he's resigned to write reports that just whitewash any failures of the security agencies. He wrote a review into the National Intelligence Community in 2020, and the review reads like it's all fine, all terrific—all of his mates are doing a great job, there's nothing to see here, you don't need to change the law and don't need to review it. You want Richardson to write the report because you know he'll whitewash it just like he did in 2020.

Then, if you want to see the latest example of Richardson being the go-to to write a report to protect the substantial systemic failures of the coalition and Labor, have a look at his 2023 report into offshore detention. He goes and does a report into one of the most corrupt arrangements you could imagine: Home Affairs writing corrupt contract after corrupt contract, literally corrupting the Nauru government. We now know that they've been funding bikie gangs, funding illegal crime, engaging in drug dealing out of Nauru—and what did your mate Richardson say? Your mate Richardson said: 'Oh well—it's a tough environment. You have to work with organised crime. You have to corrupt people. Don't you worry about it. There's nothing to see here, no-one to hold to account.' That's why you want Richardson in this royal commission—you want the same whitewashing of the national security agencies and industries that he delivered in 2020 and 2023. We can see what you're doing here. And to call this guy 'the one person capable'—