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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Attorney-General (Senator Farrell) to a question without notice I asked today in relation to the Attorney-General's response to the national anti-corruption commissioner.

It was pretty extraordinary that we had a prominent story today in the ABC detailing the correspondence that went between the current Attorney-General and the NACC commissioner which set out in detail the series of concerns the Attorney-General has with the NACC commissioner's failure to properly disclose conflicts of interest—failure to disclose them to her predecessor, failure to disclose them to herself and failure to disclose them to the Senate in questions that were asked in committees.

That letter was, I think, properly characterised as a bombshell, because up until then there has been this wall of silence, this pretend wall of solidarity from the government around Commissioner Brereton. It didn't matter how appalling his behaviour, how many times he couldn't see a conflict of interest that whacked him in the face like standing on a rake. It didn't matter how many times that happened, we got this mantra from the Albanese government, 'The NACC commissioner has our full confidence.' We now find out that that response is absolute rubbish, because this letter from the Attorney-General shows that at least she's been watching. Maybe she's not allowed to say anything in public because the Prime Minister is gagging her from making any public comments, but this secret letter written in October made it very clear just how real the concerns are that the Attorney-General has with the NACC commissioner. As I said, he couldn't see a conflict of interest if it ran up and whacked him in the face.

So what does she do? She says, 'I want a detailed response from you.' The Attorney also noted in her correspondence to Brereton that in his public statements—I'm going to quote here from the Attorney-General. She said this in her letter to the NACC commissioner: 'In your declaration you note that if a matter comes before the commission affecting the interest of an individual or entity with which you have an affiliation, you will consider if an actual or perceived conflict arises and, if necessary, take steps to mitigate it. I would suggest it would be preferable for you to declare all relevant affiliations and interactions to the CEO. If an actual conflict of interest arises, it should always be mitigated through non-participation in decision-making.'

Reading through the lawyer speak, that is the A-G schooling the National Anti-Corruption Commissioner on how you deal with a conflict of interest. Commissioner Brereton, or Major General Brereton, was saying: 'If an actual conflict of interest turns up, I'll have a think about what to do with it. I might do something with it, maybe, kind of.' What the Attorney-General said is, 'If there's an conflict of interest, get out of the bloody room! Don't be anywhere near it.' She is no doubt saying that because Major General Commissioner Brereton is the bloke who sat in on all the key decision-making about the robodebt referral until the final meeting, even though he had a rock-solid conflict of interest because he knew people who were the subject of that referral.

Again, he was told how grossly wrong he was by the inspector, but I still don't think he accepts the inspector's reports, because the arrogance of the man is extreme. Brereton still doesn't accept that the inspector got it right. He accepts that he's been overturned, but he still thinks the inspector is wrong. Even though the inspector schooled him on the conflict of interest, the Attorney-General then has to say to him, 'Mate, if you've got a conflict of interest, get out of the room,' because he failed to do it on robodebt, and it looks like he was keeping the door open to do it going forward.

If you want to be depressed, have a read of the nine-page response that Commissioner Brereton gave to the Attorney-General, an essay in self-justification for why his failure to disclose time after time was justified. One of my favourites, in the middle of his essay to the Attorney-General, was when he was answering the complaint that the Attorney had about Commissioner Brereton failing to disclose all the work he did for the IGADF in questions that I put to him in the Senate. He goes around and says, 'No, I was only asked questions about my role as a major general,' even though he needs to be a major general and a reservist in the Defence Force to do the IGADF work. He then tries to squirm out of that and says: 'No, I wasn't being asked questions about my role in the IGADF; that's why I didn't tell you anything about it. I was only being asked questions about my role as a major general.' The guy couldn't see transparency if it bit him on the bum. He couldn't see a conflict of interest if it whacked him in the face, and he doesn't deserve to be the NACC commissioner. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.