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

I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion immediately—The House:

(1)notes:

(a)the Daily Telegraph reports today that the Deputy Prime Minister rang a benefactor for a place to stay and received a gift of rent-free accommodation worth an estimated $12,000;

(b)the Deputy Prime Minister continues to benefit from this gift;

(c)the Prime Minister's own Statement of Ministerial Standards clearly states Ministers "must not seek or encourage any form of gift in their personal capacity";

(d)the Prime Minister alone is responsible for enforcing his own Ministerial Standards;

(e)this is an open and shut case of a breach of the Ministerial Standards; and

(f)that if the Prime Minister will not take action on such a clear and egregious breach of his Ministerial Standards then they are worthless; and

(2)therefore, calls on the Prime Minister to immediately sack the Deputy Prime Minister for clearly breaching the Prime Minister's Statement of Ministerial Standards.

If the Prime Minister will not act on a breach as clear as this, his ministerial standards mean nothing. These ministerial standards are promulgated by the Prime Minister. On their face, the Prime Minister makes clear in his foreword that they are documents which provide a guide to ministers as to how to act with the highest standards of integrity and propriety.

Let's start with the foreword for this document written by the Prime Minister. The first sentence reads:

Ministers and Assistant Ministers are entrusted with the conduct of public business and must act in a manner that is consistent with the highest standards of integrity and propriety.

Does anyone in Australia, let alone this House, believe that the Deputy Prime Minister has acted with the highest standards of integrity and propriety? The Prime Minister's foreword goes on:

They—

that's ministers and assistant ministers—

are required to act in accordance with the law, their oath of office and their obligations to the Parliament.

On this, yesterday and this morning the member for Maranoa, who late last year was promoted in place of his much more experienced colleagues by the Deputy Prime Minister, sought to justify his benefactor's conduct. This is what the member for Maranoa declared about the Deputy Prime Minister: 'If Barnaby Joyce has broken the law, charges should be laid; if they haven't, go away. Put up or shut up.'

Now, we are not asserting criminality. Of course everyone in this place—everyone in this country—is expected to abide by the laws of the nation. But surely the Deputy Prime Minister of our country, the second most senior minister in the government of the Commonwealth, is expected to adhere to a somewhat higher standard than merely obeying the law of this country. What an extraordinarily low bar it is for the member for Maranoa, this newly promoted minister, to be setting for the standard of conduct of ministers in this place.

It ought to be clear that this Statement of Ministerial Standards is setting a much, much higher standard of conduct for ministers in this place—

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