Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

That is the problem which cannot now be cured and no amount of obfuscation by this government, no amount of obfuscation by this Liberal Party, can obscure what has occurred. That is why standing orders should be suspended—so that we can debate properly an entirely called for censure of this Prime Minister.

This royal commissioner should resign—he should resign because by his own actions he has created the appearance of bias and he has discredited and compromised every single further action by this royal commission. If he does not resign, he should be sacked by this government. The Prime Minister who appointed him, with his captain's pick, should dismiss this royal commissioner. If he does not resign and if he is not sacked by the Prime Minister and this royal commission proceeds, its findings will be of no value to the people of Australia because they are already discredited because of this extraordinary error of judgement made by this royal commissioner. This Liberal Party royal commission into trade unions has spent over $80 million of taxpayers' money so far pursuing the political opponents of the Abbott government. Of course corruption is to be deplored, of course allegations of serious misconduct are to be thoroughly investigated and of course anyone involved in illegal behaviour in any workplace, whether unionist or employer, should feel the full weight of the law—and Labor has made clear again and again that we have no tolerance for corruption of any kind. But this royal commission, Mr Abbott's royal commission, should be seen for what it is. I do not know why members opposite are laughing but clearly they do not think this is a serious a matter about which standing orders should be suspended.

This royal commission is a tawdry political exercise by a government that is concerned only with its own ideological obsessions and not with the needs of the Australian people. The Prime Minister created this royal commission to smear the reputation of all unions in this country, and wherever possible the Prime Minister wanted this royal commission to smear the government's political opponents in the Labor Party if it could. This royal commission was set up by the Abbott government and has been conducted by a royal commissioner hand-picked by the Prime Minister to achieve political outcomes—not outcomes for the benefit of Australia but the political outcomes that this Abbott government wants to pursue. The highly politicised nature of this royal commission has been plain for all to see from the first day of hearings. Those of you who were watching it all would recall that the first day of hearings was concerned with former Prime Minister Julia Gillard about events that were said to have occurred more than 20 years ago—and it turned up nothing. But that was the purpose of this royal commission; that was the first smear that this royal commission wanted to land. That is why standing orders should be suspended. This royal commission has also dragged the leader of the federal opposition before it to answer questions. Once again a Labor leader had to answer hundreds and hundreds of questions about matters in the past, and it led nowhere. The misuse of executive power which is represented by this royal commission is unprecedented in this country.

Mr Fletcher interjecting

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