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

I rise to inquire about this government's completely unacceptable treatment of ASIO's director-general, Duncan Lewis. Last Thursday, in a late-night Senate estimates hearing, One Nation senator Pauline Hanson tried to have Mr Lewis confirm her prejudiced views about refugees. We know what Senator Hanson was trying to do. We know that she was trying to fan the flames of prejudice and fear in our community. We know that she was trying to spread false claims about refugees. What we got in response from Duncan Lewis, the director-general of ASIO, was, as you would expect from a man of Duncan Lewis's stature, a very measured and very sensible response. This is what Mr Lewis said:

I have absolutely no evidence to suggest there is a connection between refugees and terrorism.

That innocuous and straightforward answer earned Mr Lewis days of criticism from right-wing commentators, and, if that were not bad enough, days of criticism from government backbenchers. All of that criticism was completely unjustified and, of course, as Mr Lewis made clear in a radio interview this morning, because he has had to come out himself to deal with this, he was never suggesting that there are no cases of refugee involvement in terrorist attacks. He was saying that there is no link between being a refugee and being a terrorist. That is the way we need to approach all such matters of national security: by looking at the evidence and stating the facts. Yet Mr Lewis was torn apart as if he were saying something completely different, and senior members of this government, including the Minister for Justice and the Attorney-General, stood by and watched. It is a disgraceful performance. This is a former major general in the Army, a former ambassador to NATO, the former secretary of the Department of Defence, and the man who now, as head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, has helped to keep Australians safe from 12 major terrorist attacks—and this is the treatment he gets!

This government has had many undignifying moments and this was one of them. It is not the job of the director-general of ASIO to pander to prejudice and to say what the tabloids want him to say. It is his job to tell the truth, and that is what he did. It took until today—that's right, nearly a whole week—for the Attorney-General to come out in support of Mr Lewis. This is Mr Lewis, who is the director-general of ASIO, who is receiving all of the intelligence that is collected by ASIO and is reading that intelligence, and I know who we should be trusting on matters of national security and it is certainly not these government backbenchers, let alone the right-wing commentators who come out to attack him. We have yet to hear a peep from the Minister for Justice, who, I assume, in the course of his work as the Minister assisting the Prime Minister on Counter-Terrorism, deals very closely with Mr Lewis. Why won't this government stand up for senior public office holders? Why did it take so long for the Attorney-General to stand up for a man we all rely on to keep Australians safe, and why has the Minister for Justice said nothing at all? Is it because these ministers are so scared of their own backbench that they can no longer see straight and cannot defend the truth and cannot defend the plain speaking and sensible words of the director-general of ASIO? Truly, this is an Attorney-General who has so completely checked out of his job and is so busy packing his bags for London that he has completely abandoned his duties and his ability to defend his most senior public servants.

This is a government that pretends it is conservative, but it has a terrible record of defending institutions that it is meant to respect, particularly when it comes to the Attorney-General. This year it is ASIO and last year it was the Solicitor-General who came under direct attack from the Attorney-General, just for trying to do his job. That was a disgraceful episode which showed the Attorney-General's contempt for the law and its institutions and his inability to handle those who disagree with him. One could go to the disgraceful treatment of the president of the Human Rights Commission, but I do not have time. My questions are these. Why did it take so long for the Attorney-General to defend Mr Lewis? Why has the Minister for Justice not said one single word to defend Mr Lewis? When will this government start to respect the truth? When will this government start to respect the integrity of government institutions and the people who run them?

See this speech in context