Tim Hammond (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You don't have to spend long in this place to realise this Prime Minister is not backward in coming forward in relation to giving us the benefit of his legal opinions. What was the latest opinion of 'Chief Justice Pontificate'? He said: 'We've got very strong advice that the Deputy Prime Minister will be safe as houses.' Well, let's try this at home. Let's try a good, old-fashioned document called the Constitution. Here's what it says:

Any person who … is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power

…   …   …

shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

If this so-called Deputy Prime Minister—this illegitimate Deputy Prime Minister—couldn't get it right in 2004, he could have got it right in 2013. He didn't get it right then. 'What is the practical effect of his negligence, of his shame, of his illegitimate vote?' I hear you at home asking. The practical effects are these: 6,745 retail workers had their pay cut; 5,460 food workers in my electorate had their pay cut; and 170,000 Western Australians had their pay cut as a result of this illegitimate vote. Every single day this illegitimate Deputy Prime Minister stays here is a day of shame, a day of neglect and a day of an illegitimate government. The more quickly they go, the more quickly we can get on with the job. (Time expired)

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