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

Every matter that I have outlined so far is a simple statement of fact. I am being very careful not to cast political aspersions but to simply to state matters of fact.

A government member: Stick to the facts then!

It certainly is a fact that the member for Dobell claims that although the phone calls were made from Bateau Bay he did not live there until 2009. However, Bateau Bay is in Dobell, where he was the member since 2007 and where he had a presence as an endorsed candidate and preselection aspirant for years before.

As to (2): he seeks to explain the endorsement of his drivers licence on the back of credit card receipts by the fact that his licence number was well known within the office. Even if that were true, it does not explain why the production of the licence was not required at the time the licence number was endorsed on the receipt. He says that the details of his drivers licence were kept on file by the HSU because they were needed for use on right-of-entry permits. However, right-of-entry permits do not require endorsement of drivers license details.

As to (3): he simply did not address the evidence that the brothels paid for by the credit cards required the production of photo ID. He did not address the fact that the credit card receipts are signed in a hand which appears to be identical to his own signature, as verified by the forensic document examiner, Dr Paul Westwood, in his report of 22 August 2011 supplied to New South Wales police with a letter from Senator Brandis of that date.

As to (4): his only explanation for the outcalls was that blocks of rooms were booked in his own name. If this were true his story only stacks up if every single instance of an outcall was from rooms booked to block in his name. There are only two such instances of block bookings recorded in the FWA report. One was with the Marriott hotel, Sydney for the national conference on 7 September 2006, and one to University House, Canberra on 28 August 2007.

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