Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Mr Speaker, I am closing the debate and I will speak to the amendment that has been moved by the government and to the substantive motion. This has been an extraordinary two weeks for Australian public life. It has been an extraordinary day in this parliament. Earlier today, Mr Speaker, we have had the decision made by you in this place that the Prime Minister of this country, when making a statement about a particular matter, cannot be asked specifically about it.

This motion in particular relates to one of the most serious transgressions by any member of the parliament, and that is a misleading of the House. That is the fundamental difference between the motion that I have moved and the amendment subsequently moved by the Leader of the House. This is a referral to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Members’ Interests which relates not only to remarks made by the member for Robertson on 28 May but also to a subsequent statement made in this chamber by the member for Robertson which in our very strong view is a misleading of the House and needs to be considered, as moved by me, by the privileges committee.

It is worth recalling precisely what the motion is that I have moved in this House. I ask every member of the House for a moment just to be quiet and to reflect on what was said by the member for Robertson on 28 May. On 28 May the member for Robertson said this to a heavily pregnant female colleague who happened to be the member for Indi: ‘Your child will turn into a demon if you have such evil thoughts,’ ‘You will make your child a demon,’ ‘You will make your child a demon,’ and, ‘Evil thoughts will make your child a demon.’

By any standard that is an extraordinary statement to be made by anybody to a pregnant woman but, in particular, to make such a statement in the parliament of Australia is a denigration of parliamentary standards. It was also clearly recorded by Hansard. When the member for Indi sought the intervention of the Deputy Speaker, she said:

... I have become increasingly offended and would ask the member for Robertson to withdraw a comment she made earlier, the comment being—

as I said—

‘Evil thoughts will turn your child into a demon.’

The member for Indi asked specifically that the member for Robertson withdraw unreservedly. The important point of this referral, as I have moved it, is that the member for Robertson said then:

That statement was not made, so I will not withdraw what the member imagines that she heard.

In other words, the member for Robertson made a statement to the Deputy Speaker in the Main Committee, which every Australian has now heard on national television, having heard the recording of the member for Robertson making this statement. Then the member for Robertson said again:

That statement was not made, so I will not withdraw what the member imagines that she heard.

In other words, the member for Robertson was seeking to inform the House that she had not said something which she clearly had. Further to that, I would find it difficult to imagine a more inflammatory thing that could be said to another member in an advanced state of pregnancy. To say it is bad enough; to then deny that she said it when it had been recorded by microphones, by the parliament, by Hansard is why this motion that I have moved is so important and why the amendment moved by the government debases the fundamental principle that is at stake here.

When the member for Indi pursued the matter—and I think none of us should need any prompting as to understand why the member for Indi might want to have proceeded with the matter—she said to the member for Robertson:

You made that comment; it was heard by another member as well. You made that comment. I ask you to withdraw.

The member for Robertson again said:

I did not make the statement that was said to you. You did not hear it correctly.

Again, under extraordinary provocation, the member for Indi specifically asked the member for Robertson to withdraw and not only did she not withdraw but she denied that she had actually said it. She denied it although it had been recorded by the parliament and it has now been broadcast, as we know only too well, to all Australians.

On the following day, the member for Robertson rose in this place—I remember it very well: it was just after nine o’clock on Thursday morning, the 29th—and on indulgence made the following statement. She said:

Yesterday in the Main Committee there was a robust debate and very many robust interjections with both the member for Indi and me.

…            …            …

The member much later in the debate interrupted another speaker and asked for some comments I had made to be withdrawn and I did not do so. I have had time to reflect on the incident—

she said—

and, though the comments were not completely accurate, I do unreservedly withdraw any remarks that may have caused offence to the member.

So even in the statement here in the main chamber on the morning of the 29th the member for Robertson again has sought to deliberately misinform this parliament, if not mislead it, about what actually occurred in the Main Committee the evening before.

This is by any standard an extraordinary and a very serious transgression of parliamentary standards. The government diminishes itself and the Prime Minister diminishes himself by seeking to move an amendment which debases the fundamental principle that is at stake here, and that is that if any member says something which should be withdrawn, if any member says something which he or she subsequently denies saying, then that member is not upholding the fundamental principles that are the architecture of this building and everything that is supposed to go on inside it. That is why the motion that I have moved cannot be amended in the way proposed by the Leader of the House.

I further moved that the House notes that the member for Robertson’s assertion that the comments were not completely accurate is, as I have said, disputed by the facts and that, in addition to the member for Indi, the member for Robertson’s ‘demon’ comments were clearly audible to the member for Maranoa—that of course will be investigated by the privileges committee—who was in the Main Committee on that particular evening. But, more importantly, the audio tape from the Main Committee highlighting the ‘demon’ comments by the member for Robertson has now been widely broadcast on news services across the country.

The government and the Leader of the House are actually compounding the misleading of the House and the falsification of a statement by the member for Robertson by moving this amendment. The government is trying desperately to avoid this motion being passed in its current form and the member for Robertson being referred to the privileges committee because it will expose contempt of this parliament and the fundamental processes of democracy and integrity that are supposed to be upheld by members when they come into this place. Whatever the member for Robertson or anybody else thinks that they can say at any other place, the fundamental principle is that, when you come to this parliament and say things that are inappropriate, that are offensive and that diminish the people whom you purport to represent and you are asked to withdraw them, you withdraw them. You do not turn around and say, ‘I didn’t say them.’ You do not say to a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy who has been told that her child will have demon thoughts: ‘You’re imagining it. I did not say it. It was not said.’

The member for Maranoa knows that it was said. Every Australian who has heard the audio knows it was said. We in this parliament then heard the member for Robertson the following morning, after reflection overnight, seek to withdraw these remarks—that in itself was appropriate. But, in the process of seeking to withdraw the comments, the member has compounded the most serious transgression of a member of parliament, as far as procedure is concerned, by seeking to mislead the House or at least not fully providing the facts in relation to the incident of the night before.

The Prime Minister has made a lot of standards for the Labor Party to meet. The Prime Minister has said that there would be transparency. But the front page of the Australian newspaper this morning says, ‘Rudd turns back on Neal’. Importantly, in the text of that story, the Prime Minister’s office made a statement. The Prime Minister made a statement in Japan that he does not want to talk about here, but that is another issue we have dealt with. The Prime Minister’s office said in relation to this entire matter:

It is now a matter for individual members if they still wish to raise a matter of privilege in the house. The Prime Minister believes the comments were very inappropriate. He also believes they were out of step with all parliamentary standards past and present.

It is not often I say this in response to the current Prime Minister, but all I can say is ‘Hear, hear’. That is exactly what it is. It is out of step with all parliamentary standards, past and present. But it is not only the standards of the member for Robertson that are out of step; it is also the standards of the Prime Minister that are out of step—in a government that seeks to amend this motion of referral to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests that would prevent the privileges committee from getting to the truth of what actually happened. The truth of it is that the member for Robertson made the most provocative statements to the member for Indi—not on one occasion but on several occasions—and she repeated them. When asked to withdraw the statements, she denied that she had actually made them—and then, coming into the main chamber to explain herself, she misled the parliament in the process.

What the government is trying to do, and what the Prime Minister is trying to do, is to bring this down to some sort of petty dispute between two MPs on different sides of the House. You know better than anybody, Mr Speaker, that that is the norm of the parliament—that members on one side contest the ideas, views and opinions of those on the other side. We all know that. That is bread-and-butter democracy. But this goes much further. This goes to what I would suggest are the most provocative, offensive remarks made to a pregnant woman in this parliament since Federation. It then goes to the fact that the person who made these remarks denied having made them despite having made them on more than one occasion. Further to that, and despite all of the evidence from the member for Maranoa and the Deputy Speaker who was in the chair at the time and the audio that has been played to all of Australia, she then seeks to mislead parliament in explaining herself the following morning.

We take this matter very, very seriously—as I know you do, Mr Speaker. That is why we will not accept the removal of the words from the motion as I have moved it. In fact, it is absolutely essential that the privileges committee consider the contempt of the House by the member for Robertson in the terms and for the reasons that I have outlined. To accept the amendment of the government is to take the teeth out of the privileges committee in getting to the real basis of this. The real basis of this is that the member for Robertson has defied the standards of the parliament, defied the standards of her own party and defied the standards proclaimed by the Prime Minister. It is absolutely essential that this motion as I have moved it stand in full.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Albanese’s amendment) stand part of the question..

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