Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a unanimous report of the Privileges Committee. It is a report that dealt with the inquiry into the possible false or misleading evidence and improper refusal to provide information to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee. This inquiry, conducted by the Privileges Committee, arose out of a referral by myself, as Deputy Chair of the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee, and Senator Murray. We jointly wrote to the President about what we felt may well have been the giving of false or misleading evidence to a Senate inquiry, whether there had been any improper refusal to provide information to a committee and whether any contempt had been committed.

The saga of events that led to this report from the Privileges Committee is fairly well known to senators, not just to those on the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee. It arose out of the inquiry by the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee into the operation of Regional Partnerships and the Sustainable Regions Program—also referred to as the ‘regional rorts inquiry’. I know government members would not accept that description.

I accept the report, and I endorse the motion moved by Senator Faulkner as chairman of the Privileges Committee. I have read the report a couple of times. The Privileges Committee recognised that it was dealing with a serious and complex issue. This was a major reason why Senator Murray and I referred it to the Privileges Committee. The issues before the Privileges Committee are set out on page 2 of its report, and I will read them into the Hansard:

Senators Forshaw and Murray then decided to raise Mr Maguire’s conduct as a matter of privilege on two counts:

• first, that Mr Maguire refused to respond to the committee’s requests that he provide the information that he had undertaken to provide at the hearing, namely, a list of his companies; and
• secondly, that in failing to corroborate his claim that his companies made substantial financial contributions to Mr Windsor’s political campaigns, a claim denied by Mr Windsor and his campaign chairman, Mr Stephen Hall, and unable to be substantiated by the AEC, Mr Maguire knowingly gave false or misleading evidence to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee.

What I have just read, in a very quick snapshot, summarises the issues that arose.

During the inquiry by the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee into the Regional Partnerships program, Mr Greg Maguire gave evidence that he had made financial contributions to the campaign funds of Mr Tony Windsor, the current member for New England and a former member of the New South Wales parliament. He volunteered that evidence and he did so when the committee was testing assertions made by Mr Windsor regarding funding for an equestrian centre project to be built in Tamworth. There was a major difference of view about Mr Windsor’s role as a member and whether or not the project could be brought to fruition whilst he remained the member for New England. There is a lot more background to that, but Mr Maguire—who at the time was the chairman of the committee that was promoting this project—came along to demonstrate the veracity of his own submission and to refute other evidence. During his evidence Mr Maguire claimed that his companies had made contributions to Mr Windsor’s election campaigns. He said:

Mr Windsor is also aware that my companies have made substantial financial contributions to his political campaigns over the years.

I note that Senator Carr, who participated in the inquiry, is in the chamber. Mr Maguire was asked to provide some proof of what he had said—remembering that this is evidence that he volunteered—and he undertook to provide to the committee a list of companies that had made such contributions. Over many months—both up to the tabling of the committee’s report and subsequently—he refused to honour that undertaking. He refused to respond to requests and he refused to respond to letters from the secretary of the committee asking that he honour his obligation to provide the evidence. At the same time, the Australian Electoral Commission, which had examined the issue as well, apparently could find no evidence on their records of any disclosure of financial contributions.

So we had the situation where there was a direct conflict of evidence from Mr Windsor on the one hand, who denied that he had ever received such contributions, and Mr Maguire on the other hand, who said that he had made them. I note in the Privileges Committee report that they also requested that Mr Maguire provide the proof of financial contributions that he had undertaken to provide to the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee. At no stage did Mr Maguire comply. Rather, he engaged lawyers and adopted an approach where he was not going to cooperate and not going to respond. He made that clear in correspondence to both committees.

The problem that is noted in the Senate Privileges Committee report is that they reached an impasse because, in order to take the matter further, it would involve calling Mr Windsor, a member of the House of Representatives, before the Privileges Committee—something that is unable to be done due to the relationship between the two houses. As is stated in the report:

It is a well established rule that one House may not inquire into or adjudge the conduct of a member of another House.

So, unfortunately, the Privileges Committee reached the same dead-end that the Senate finance committee had reached, which was that we had no cooperation, no assistance and no response from Mr Maguire. To my mind, if you give evidence to a Senate committee and you make a statement and you offer to back that up with documentary proof and you fail to do so, there is only one conclusion that can be reached: that you do not have the evidence and it may have never existed. At all times, Mr Maguire has had the opportunity to comply but he has refused to do so. I note that the Senate Privileges Committee states:

This has been one of the more unsatisfactory inquiries of the committee. Conduct by a witness that would normally warrant the most serious criticism will remain unaddressed because jurisdictional issues prevent a full examination by the committee of all the circumstances. In other circumstances, a finding of contempt against Mr Maguire would appear to be almost a foregone conclusion. As a result of his conduct, Mr Maguire emerges from both this committee’s inquiry and that of the former Finance and Public Administration References Committee with little credibility.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.