Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

With respect to the question as to what would be the difference between a prosecution on the whim of a politician and a prosecution under, in this case, the Smethurst manner, section 79 of the Crimes Act actually embeds the requirement to come to the Attorney-General for consent. What might a prosecution at the whim of a politician look like? It might look like this; this might be the worst case scenario: an opposition leader who said yesterday that the government should shut down a prosecution, breaching the fundamental convention that you do not, as a government, tell the AFP to drop an investigation. If that is not remarkable enough, what is remarkable is who the politician who actually called for the investigation in the first place was. The shadow Attorney-General was the politician. A letter to the Prime Minister on 29 April 2019 said: 'I write with extreme concern. I am sure I do not need to emphasise with you the gravity of such a security breach. It is therefore—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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