Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly, Madam Deputy Speaker. Quite apart from the gross expenditure of the 77,000 Health Services Union members' money on personal items, the member for Dobell has to answer serious questions about whether the expenditure on his election campaign in Dobell to the tune of $267,000 was in breach of the Electoral Act. That is why standing orders need to be suspended so the House can properly consider whether a case has been created for a 14-day suspension of the member for Dobell. The parliament has to protect itself. We have to protect our reputations and our integrity, because the government has allowed this matter, this open sore, to fester for too long.

The Prime Minister has defended the member for Dobell in this House over and over again. On eight occasions she has expressed her confidence in the member for Dobell. In fact, she went so far as to say on one occasion, 'I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.' That is why standing orders need to be suspended, so we can test the Prime Minister's confidence in the member for Dobell in this place, so we can discuss and debate whether the member for Dobell has so breached what we regard as acceptable behaviour that therefore he warrants a suspension.

Ten days ago the Prime Minister felt so strongly on this matter that she ejected him from the caucus—she accepted his suspension from the caucus. She still accepts his vote in the parliament. Of course, standing orders should be suspended because if the original motion is carried his vote will not be accepted in this parliament for the next 14 sitting days. If the member for Dobell is not good enough for the caucus then how could he be good enough for the Prime Minister to rely on his vote in this parliament? This whole sorry affair has damaged the parliament and its reputation. It has damaged the standing of the parliament in the eyes of the Australian people. It is time for the Australian parliament to protect its reputation.

In my previous speech I referred to the comments of the former Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans; journalists in the press gallery of very high standing like Michelle Grattan, who nobody could accuse of being involved in partisan politics; and even a former member of the Labor Party. They have all bemoaned the state that the Labor Party finds itself in. For three years in this House the opposition has tried to hold the member for Dobell to account. We have asked on many occasions for him to make a statement in this parliament. This motion gives him the opportunity, right now, to make a statement to the parliament. It gives him the opportunity to do what he promised he would do some time ago, which was to make a statement to the parliament. This motion allows him the opportunity to do that, because he can now follow the seconder to this motion and speak against it should he choose to do so. Or will a member of the Labor Party seek to defend the member for Dobell, and what arguments will they put as to why the member for Dobell should not be suspended from his duties in the House for 14 days?

It is time for the parliament to restore the confidence that the Australian people want to have in their elected members. But, most importantly, let us remember who the crime has been committed against in the allegations that have been made against the member for Dobell, and that is the 77,000 members of the Health Services Union who have seen half a million of their membership dues spent on personal items—the escort services, the campaigning in Dobell, fine dining, overseas travel—that Fair Work Australia has found were actions taken by the member for Dobell when he was the national secretary of the Health Services Union. While it took Fair Work Australia three years to reach the conclusions that they published yesterday, the conclusions were utterly damning and so serious that they will now take action in the Federal Court to defend the interests of the 77,000 members of the HSU.

It is passing strange—perhaps it is not these days—that it is the opposition, it is the coalition, standing up for members of the union movement around Australia. Menzies used to refer to them as part of the forgotten people when he founded our great party. So many unionists sit on the other side of the House and yet not one of them has stood up and defended the interests of the members of the Health Services Union; in fact, they have traduced the reputation of Kathy Jackson, who was one of the few who had the courage to stand up.

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