Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too wish to support the motion. As a member of the Privileges Committee, I was very pleased to be involved in this inquiry which the Speaker referred to the committee. At the outset can I say that I was very pleased with the conduct of the committee; it operated in a totally bipartisan way, as the member for Chisholm has just outlined. I believe the ultimate result and the recommendation of the committee justify the investigation. The fact that Ms Harriett Swift deliberately and fraudulently misrepresented the member for Eden-Monaro is something that this House could not take lightly. It is not just that it attacked the member for Eden-Monaro; it attacked the integrity of this House and all the members. It also attacked the integrity and security of members in their ability to represent their electorates in a proper and meaningful way. As has already been said, to pass this off as an April Fools’ Day joke twice and to see it as funny could not be tolerated. Quite properly, the Privileges Committee dealt with this in a serious manner and came to the findings that it did.

For somebody to deliberately compile a member’s letterhead and then reproduce their signature is quite fraudulent. In the corporate world it would be dealt with in a civil way, I would imagine, far more seriously than we have dealt with it through the Privileges Committee. We know that, as an ancient institution under the Westminster system, this House has through its committee system, and particularly through the Privileges Committee, more severe options. I am not suggesting in any way that they could or should have been taken. But Ms Swift might be lucky that she is operating in this century and not in another one in terms of the way the House has dealt with contempt proceedings over the years.

The evidence pointed to the fact that Ms Swift did not act alone. However, it was obvious that in this case she was the main perpetrator. The Federal Police had gathered sufficient evidence. They said they had located this evidence in Ms Swift’s computer but, because others had used the computer, they were unable to directly attribute it to her. This is where the committee system worked, because Ms Swift came before the committee and admitted to the committee that she was the guilty party. It demonstrated that the Privileges Committee process worked, and the committee carried out its duties.

In conclusion, it has to be said that this sort of malicious attack on members will not be tolerated now or in the future. This sends a strong message to anybody else who has a history, as Ms Swift does, of deliberate and malicious misrepresentations that this will not be tolerated by this House. I would like to congratulate all those involved for their conduct, particularly the secretary, David Elder, and parliamentary staff of the committee. I believe that as a result of this inquiry the integrity of the House has been upheld and justice has been delivered to the member for Eden-Monaro, Mr Gary Nairn.

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