Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I am compelled to speak on this motion from the member for Lyne because of its sheer audacious and sanctimonious terms of reference. I find it unbelievable that the member for Lyne, after two years of his so-called agreement with his so-called rural Independents, has decided to raise this again. As I am a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Privileges, I can only speak in broad terms of some of the issues that I raise. However, let's be clear on this: the representative of the rural Independents and others in the privileges committee is the member for New England; and, while this matter was being considered in the privileges committee, he never turned up. If you are able to check the records you will see that he showed no interest in this committee until the issue of Craig Thomson, the member for Dobell, came up. So I find it unbelievable that after this period of time they have decided to give it a run again.

Let us just talk in broad terms. We know the report has been delivered to the parliament. This committee examined a member's code of conduct and they examined it on the basis that the parliament could not deal with members whose behaviour was deemed unacceptable. The British model, on which we base much of our system, gave us evidence. This was done in response to the misuse of entitlements by British MPs. It is quite well known what the British MPs did in terms of misusing their entitlements to houses and all the other things. They went to court. They lost their seats. But a huge bureaucracy was set up—and this is what the member for Lyne, in this motion, wants to do to us—set up a huge bureaucracy attached to this House, which would then go on a fishing expedition for nefarious or otherwise behaviour of MPs. And the evidence given by the British MPs was that many of the complaints of the electorate against MPs was not for behaviour unbecoming but for things like not replying to letters or not giving satisfactory answers, or not being responsive enough. This huge bureaucracy was set up and of course when you set up this bureaucracy it then goes looking for work.

This ingenuous behaviour by the member for Lyne is appalling. Maybe we should include in this motion, 'disingenuous behaviour by members' because the member for Lyne would find himself well and truly encapsulated in that term of reference. For example, he ratted on his own electorate. He allowed the Labor Party to form government even though his electorate is overwhelmingly conservative. He obviously helped deliver the carbon tax. He voted against the means test for private health. He voted against the bill for indexation of veterans after saying he would not. He voted against the youth allowance. His form on sincere behaviour is very ordinary. So I say to the member for Lyne, who comes into this place with a sanctimonious motion like this: you will not be here next time to be able to do anything about it. We will be left with the mess of this bureaucracy that you want to set up. Both the member for Lyne and the member for New England will not be here in the next parliament. That is pretty obvious. As a result, we are going to be left with their legacy. I suspect that is what they want to do.

MPs that misbehave in this place have been dealt with by the courts. Who can remember Keith Wright, or Dr Andrew Theophanous? They went to court; they got dealt with by the courts. If you are so bad your own party will deal with you—you will get dealt with at preselection time.

I have gone to the member for Lyne, for example, and asked for his help. He signed an agreement with the government about accountability, about developing a spatial accounting model which would tell us where the money is spent in each electorate. So I wrote to the member for Lyne recently and asked him what he was doing about it. He could not answer me. He then referred me on to the Prime Minister's office, who then just gave us a vague idea of what they wanted to do. They do not want any spatial accounting because you will actually see where the money is spent. We know that their electorates are being pork barrelled by this Labor Party in a huge way to get re-elected. So this is a disingenuous sanctimonious bill. It has been brought to this place by the member for Lyne, and it should be seen for what it is worth.

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