Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly about the matter that was raised after question time today concerning the Standing Committee on Family and Human Services and the consideration of the report which has taken place over some weeks. I just want to put on the record that the chairman’s—that is, my—draft report was circulated to all members of the committee on Tuesday, 21 November and that there were then five consideration meetings: on Monday, 27 November, from 9.35 to 11.45 am; on Tuesday, 28 November, from 3.45 to 4.35 pm; on Tuesday, 28 November, from 8.11 to 9.33 pm; and on Thursday, 30 November, from 3.46 to 5.56 pm. Those meetings were attended by opposition members of the committee as well as government members, and we covered five-sevenths of the report on those occasions—five of the chapters were dealt with. The remaining two chapters were to be dealt with on Monday, 4 December. We met at about 9.10 am and we sat until 12.15. I realise that there was a vote going on for leadership for the opposition members, but I really did think they would come after the ballot had taken place.

There was also a very important reason for continuing with that meeting on 4 December, and that was that we had to deal with the very serious question of the leaking of the recommendations and material contained in the report. I stood in this place earlier this week and said that a journalist had called a staffer of mine and advised that he had been slipped a copy of the recommendations. I then sought advice of the Clerk. I spoke to the editor of the newspaper concerned and confirmed the advice in writing: that to publish would be in breach of the standing orders and that we would discuss that with the committee subsequently. It was an important thing to do, and it was also important to continue dealing with the report.

Because of the leaking of the material I was careful about the distribution of material. Nonetheless, when the report was finally compiled with all of the amendments and the work that we had done, it was sent by electronic mail to all members of the committee, both government and opposition. There was a further meeting today at 3 o’clock, when we dealt with minutes. But unfortunately the opposition members did not appear at that meeting. They probably had very good reasons for not being there, but in fact they were not with us at that meeting.

I think the committee worked very hard and very studiously until the matter of the leaking of the recommendations, which really did make life very difficult. The committee really did feel, I think, that when material is leaked you have to take precautions to make sure that more material is not leaked. I would like to place on the record that all members of the committee have worked hard. I think perhaps the spill motion and people wanting to compete for frontbench positions and support other folk got in the way. I have to be very strong and simply say that the work of the committee has been good and that the outcome is important. For the record, I wanted to put those details into the Hansard.