Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

That was a truly remarkable performance from the member for Throsby. When faced with the allegations that have been put to the member for Dobell on a sustained basis over many years in this place, outside of this place and in the media, the response of the member for Throsby was to come in and make some inane comments about the separations of powers and then, astonishingly, a return to Work Choices. Let us just go back and recap the reasons we are discussing the behaviour of the member for Dobell. We are discussing the behaviour of the member for Dobell because very serious allegations have been made about him misusing the funds of the union that he was the secretary of, the Health Services Union, which represents 70,000 of the most disadvantaged workers in Australia. Very serious allegations have been made that he abused credit cards issued by the union by using them to pay for electoral and personal expenses. Over $100,000 of cash advances were not accounted for. Perhaps most celebrated of all was the allegation that sexual services were paid for using those credit cards.

These allegations have been denied by the member for Dobell, but never once has he come into this chamber to defend himself from these allegations. The member for Throsby rather astonishingly said that we could not repeat these allegations outside of the chamber. I am very happy to table about 10 or 20 media interviews where all of these allegations have been made outside of the chamber. The member for Dobell has done absolutely nothing to defend himself from those allegations. What he did was take defamation action against Fairfax Press, which was publishing these allegations. He was forced to withdraw that action and incurred significant costs, which were then met by the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. What we all know—what every single member of this House knows—is that the member for Dobell has not been able to defend himself because he is guilty of these allegations. If he was not then he would come into this House and he would defend himself against them—something he has refused to do on every given occasion, even though the Prime Minister said the he was going to be required to—

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