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

The reason that standing orders should be suspended is that the allegations which have been made against the member for Dobell and the findings that have been made by Fair Work Australia about the member for Dobell are so serious that they must be tested in this parliament and he should be required to make a 10-minute explanation to this parliament, because these are the most serious allegations that a member of parliament can face. They are allegations of corruption. They are allegations of the misuse of HSU members' money. They are findings of Fair Work Australia.

He needs to explain how it is that, when he was the national secretary of the HSU and when he was negotiating for his members to receive a meal allowance of $11.40 a day, he was using the HSU credit cards to pay $550 for meals at Forty One in the Sydney CBD and spending thousands of dollars of members' money. While they are on their meal allowances of $11.40, he is spending their money on overseas travel, on escort agencies, on fine dining and on personal items. We as members of parliament have a right to know his side of the story which so besmirches the reputation of this parliament. He needs to explain how it is that while he could find $276,000 of HSU members' money to spend on his own election in Dobell he was facilitating an agreement so that his workers could clean bedpans in aged-care facilities and hospitals at $500 a week. All members of the HSU would have liked to be the member for Dobell if they had known they could have found $276,000 of their own money to campaign for it, but no. He was lucky enough to be the national secretary and a favoured son of Sussex Street. Consider this. This is the reason that the suspension of standing orders should be carried so that he can explain himself to the House: it would have taken an HSU member 12 weeks of cleaning a hospital to pay for the escort services that the member for Dobell is alleged to have paid for—according to findings of Fair Work Australia—with their union dues in just one night.

To vote in favour of this motion would be a demonstration of support for the 77,000 members of the Health Services Union. To vote against it is a vote for continuing the protection racket that exists around the member for Dobell and that has protected him in this place through three years of questioning from the opposition. If the Prime Minister truly believes that the next election will be about who stands for the privileged few and who stands for working Australians, she would want to stand up for working Australians today and direct her caucus to support this motion. Why wouldn't she want to do that? Why wouldn't the crossbenchers and the Labor Party caucus vote for a motion that simply calls on the member for Dobell to have 10 minutes to explain his side of the story in one of the most tawdry episodes ever to besmirch the parliament? To vote against this motion—to vote this motion down, if that is the decision of the Labor Party and the crossbenchers—will mean essentially a continuation of the protection racket of the member for Dobell. What is the motivation for that in the Labor Party? He is no longer a member of their caucus. Why would the Labor Party stand up today and argue against a motion that asks an Independent member to explain himself to the parliament? The truth is that he is not an Independent member at all. He is as much a member of the Labor caucus today as he was 10 days ago. The Labor Party continues to accept his vote. They know that he is as much a Labor man today as he was 10 days ago. Nothing has changed except that the Prime Minister found out about the Fair Work inquiry report—when it was coming out and what was in it—and she did everything she could to try to dispatch this tar baby which has so damaged her government.

I cannot imagine anyone in the House wanting to turn their back on the 77,000 members of the HSU by voting against this motion, and I cannot imagine some of the members of the Labor Party caucus of good conscience seriously wanting to see their vote recorded as part of the continuing protection racket that protects the member for Dobell. The member for Banks is a good man; he knows in his conscience that it is wrong to continue to protect the member for Dobell, and I have known him for 20 years. He knows that members of the HSU deserve better than that, and I call on him and other members of the caucus to stand with the opposition and require an explanation. If they do not, they will confirm what Mark Latham once said— (Time expired)

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