Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The letter to which the member for Isaacs refers was placed before the inquiry into the Martin Place siege; the response from the Attorney-General's department likewise. The member for Isaacs might well appreciate that the Attorney-General's chief of staff is a former director-general of ASIO, and the Attorney-General is confident that all appropriate protocols were adopted.

If the member for Isaacs continues to wish to make political capital out of a national tragedy, I will feel obliged to remind the member for Isaacs that it was a senior leader of the Labor Party who wrote a reference for this man. It was a senior leader of the Labor Party who wrote a reference for Mr Monis. I would suggest that—given the six separate briefings on terror matters that the opposition have had, as well as the 13 further briefings that the opposition have had on national security matters—they cannot claim to be ignorant of the significant threat that terrorism is posing to this country. After six separate briefings on terrorism matters and 13 separate briefings on national security matters, this opposition ought to know better than to pursue this line of questioning.

See this speech in context