Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion for the House to consider the Committee of Privileges report presented on 31 May 2007 about allegations of documents fraudulently and inaccurately written and issued in a member’s name, and to move a motion to give effect to the recommendation of the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the House agrees with the recommendation of the report of the Committee of Privileges presented on 31 May 2007 about allegations of documents fraudulently and inaccurately written and issued in a member’s name, and:

(1)

finds Ms Harriett Swift guilty of a contempt of the House in that she undertook conduct that amounted to an improper interference with the free performance by the Member for Eden-Monaro of his duties as a member; and

(2)

reprimands Ms Swift for her conduct.

On 31 May 2007 I presented to the House a report from the committee on whether two incidents where allegedly fraudulent and inaccurate documents purportedly from the member for Eden-Monaro, the Hon. Gary Nairn MP, were distributed to media outlets and to a recipient of government funding in his electorate constituted contempts. The committee found that Ms Harriett Swift on five occasions in 2005 and 2006 deliberately misrepresented the Hon. Gary Nairn MP by producing and distributing documents that fabricated Mr Nairn’s letterhead and signature to make it appear that the documents were prepared and sent by Mr Nairn.

The committee found Ms Swift guilty of a contempt of the House in that she had undertaken conduct which amounted to an improper interference in the free performance by Mr Nairn of his duties as a member. The committee recommended that the House endorse its finding that Ms Swift had committed a contempt of the House and reprimand her for her conduct. This motion gives effect to the committee’s recommendation and I commend it to the House.

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. We understand that some of our constituents are passionate about certain issues, and old-growth forests and logging is one such issue. However, although they have the right and the responsibility to protest about these things, they must do so appropriately. Sadly, Ms Swift did not appropriately protest about these issues. She had numerous legal options open to her to raise her genuine concerns and to let the area know that these were issues which meant a great deal to her and about which she was passionate.

Taking someone’s letterhead and, more importantly, their signature—that letterhead and signature belonging to a member of parliament—was not an appropriate form of protest. For all Ms Swift’s contention that it was an April Fools’ Day joke, we as the Committee of Privileges did not find that that was a decent enough excuse to allow someone to use a member of parliament’s letterhead and, as I said, more importantly, that member’s signature to protest. Ms Swift stands rightly reprimanded by this parliament for breaching our privilege.

If we had let this matter pass, we would have been saying to the electorate at large that any member of parliament is fair game; any member of parliament’s letterhead and signature can be abused in this manner. In this day and age of modern technology it is fairly easy to reproduce someone’s letterhead and a very good-looking signature. That could lead to open slather. As Ms Swift said, these things can be amusing, but they can also be hurtful and damaging, and sometimes harmful and scurrilous accusations can be circulated in the community. Ms Swift stands reprimanded by this parliament for her contempt. I support the motion before the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too wish to support the motion. As a member of the Privileges Committee, I was very pleased to be involved in this inquiry which the Speaker referred to the committee. At the outset can I say that I was very pleased with the conduct of the committee; it operated in a totally bipartisan way, as the member for Chisholm has just outlined. I believe the ultimate result and the recommendation of the committee justify the investigation. The fact that Ms Harriett Swift deliberately and fraudulently misrepresented the member for Eden-Monaro is something that this House could not take lightly. It is not just that it attacked the member for Eden-Monaro; it attacked the integrity of this House and all the members. It also attacked the integrity and security of members in their ability to represent their electorates in a proper and meaningful way. As has already been said, to pass this off as an April Fools’ Day joke twice and to see it as funny could not be tolerated. Quite properly, the Privileges Committee dealt with this in a serious manner and came to the findings that it did.

For somebody to deliberately compile a member’s letterhead and then reproduce their signature is quite fraudulent. In the corporate world it would be dealt with in a civil way, I would imagine, far more seriously than we have dealt with it through the Privileges Committee. We know that, as an ancient institution under the Westminster system, this House has through its committee system, and particularly through the Privileges Committee, more severe options. I am not suggesting in any way that they could or should have been taken. But Ms Swift might be lucky that she is operating in this century and not in another one in terms of the way the House has dealt with contempt proceedings over the years.

The evidence pointed to the fact that Ms Swift did not act alone. However, it was obvious that in this case she was the main perpetrator. The Federal Police had gathered sufficient evidence. They said they had located this evidence in Ms Swift’s computer but, because others had used the computer, they were unable to directly attribute it to her. This is where the committee system worked, because Ms Swift came before the committee and admitted to the committee that she was the guilty party. It demonstrated that the Privileges Committee process worked, and the committee carried out its duties.

In conclusion, it has to be said that this sort of malicious attack on members will not be tolerated now or in the future. This sends a strong message to anybody else who has a history, as Ms Swift does, of deliberate and malicious misrepresentations that this will not be tolerated by this House. I would like to congratulate all those involved for their conduct, particularly the secretary, David Elder, and parliamentary staff of the committee. I believe that as a result of this inquiry the integrity of the House has been upheld and justice has been delivered to the member for Eden-Monaro, Mr Gary Nairn.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The House of Representatives Standing Committee of Privileges is a very important committee of this House. It is important that at all times it operates in a constructive and bipartisan fashion, and I think that is what has happened in this case. One of the reasons it is important to do that is that if one goes to the Parliamentary Privileges Act one finds that the penalties under section 7 can be a term of imprisonment for up to six months or a fine of up to $5,000 for an individual. They are pretty serious penalties. It is important that the committee operates according to procedural fairness, which it has done on all occasions, and affords an opportunity for individuals. I think we have done that in this process. The important thing to say is that the report and recommendation before the House is unanimous. I do not do that lightly because, as people who know me are aware, my whole background as a solicitor and barrister was as a defence lawyer—as a legal aid solicitor and as a public defender. But with my hat on as a member of parliament it is important to operate according to the guidelines of this particular committee and deal with issues on their merits. I can report to the House that, in my view, the committee dealt with this in a very sensitive and appropriate fashion.

True it was that we had to summons Ms Swift to appear before us. But she obeyed that summons; she came and she cooperated and answered questions. If one goes to the report one can see that the material before us was that the Australian Federal Police had received advice from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions on 10 August and that on the basis of that advice no prosecution was initiated. That is because the criminal standard applied in terms of what the Director of Public Prosecutions was looking at. But when it came to the civil standard, the evidence before the committee was that there was a clear and manifest connection of Ms Harriett Swift to the activities of preparing and sending the press release and the letters purportedly from Mr Nairn. That was the evidence of the AFP representative. But, to her credit, Ms Swift, when the committee chair asked her: ‘Were you responsible in any way for the preparation and distribution of that correspondence or those press releases?’ her answer was, ‘Yes.’ She basically fessed up. I think that is something that we as a committee have taken into consideration in what we are recommending to the parliament today in relation to her: that she be reprimanded for her conduct. That is not a light recommendation; it is of itself pretty serious. But recommendations to this parliament could be more serious, and they have been in the past.

There was the celebrated case of Fitzpatrick and Browne. In the mid-fifties, the then Prime Minister moved for three months imprisonment; the opposition leader had moved another motion, which was lost. But, for more serious allegations, those two served three months imprisonment.

I think it is important to send a message to Ms Swift and any others who might care to engage in similar conduct that that sort of conduct will not be tolerated by this parliament because it undermines us as representatives. I do not have a problem with political action, political dissent, but I have a real problem with breaching the law or, in effect, committing a contempt of the parliament or a breach of a privilege of the parliament. I take this institution seriously. Ms Swift is someone who has knowledge of this institution. She has worked for a member of parliament. That should not be held against her. I raise it in the context of the fact that she understands the nature and course of her conduct. That is why I support this particular motion. I think it is a balanced motion. I think it is an appropriate recommendation. I think it sends the right message. We also say that we do not want to see a repeat of this conduct, because if there is a repeat of this conduct we will consider that conduct into the future. A repetition of this sort of conduct will not go down well, I think, with any future Privileges Committee.

I do recommend the motion to the parliament. I think it does strike the right balance. It is a unanimous recommendation and enjoys the unanimous support of all members of the committee. A number of members of the committee were not able to participate in the deliberation of the committee and did not want to speak in the parliament because they have personal knowledge of Ms Swift. That is appropriate. That is another indication of what we are attempting to do here to the best of our ability—that is, to conduct this in an appropriate manner. Where there might be potential for bias one way or the other, people remove themselves from deliberations, and they need to be respected for that. The truth is: there but for the grace of God go I, in terms of my determination of this particular complaint. The fact that it was Gary Nairn had nothing to do with it one way or the other. It could be any member of the House. My deliberation was not moved one way or the other in respect of the particular individual concerned, for whom I have a high regard—not for his politics, but that is another matter. They need to be looked at by members of this House in a proper way, especially where there is a potential for a penal provision or a recommendation by this parliament for a period of imprisonment. That is no mean thing.

I do have reservations about parliaments imposing periods of imprisonment, but that is a matter that we will look at down the track. We are not recommending that here or anywhere near that. Ms Swift does deserve to be reprimanded for her conduct, but we also took into account the fact that she did cooperate with the Privileges Committee, in her way, and did make an admission that in effect filled in the gap. It is all right for a police officer to make an assertion about what he felt. That of itself, in my view, did not quite get us there. But when Ms Swift readily admitted to the question from the chair, it was all over red rover in relation to her guilt. I recommend the motion to the House.

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the main target of Ms Swift’s illegal campaign, I speak today in support of the Privileges Committee report. I want to put on the record my thanks to all those on the committee for defending me, which is what the committee effectively did and something that I would expect the committee would do for any member of parliament in a similar circumstance. I would like to say a little about the history of this because I think the actions need to be put into some context. People associated with Ms Swift, and I use those words carefully, have for quite a number of years engaged in this type of activity. South East Fibre Exports, a company that operates the chip-mill in Eden, formerly known as Harris-Daishowa, had this type of activity happen to them on numerous occasions over the years, with press releases being issued supposedly on the letterhead of Harris-Daishowa and on the letterhead of their Japanese parent company, and other associated entities, as if they were coming from those particular companies. But, each time, they were really coming from a group of people who have never accepted the results of things like the regional forest agreement, which has ensured that the very old growth forests in our region have been put into national parks and wilderness, in certain circumstances, but that substantial forested areas still remain available for sustainable forestry.

They have never accepted the umpire’s decision. They are insatiable. No matter how much you give, they only want more. I can put up with arriving at functions, which I have with the Prime Minister, where Ms Swift has thrown woodchips at us, and other related activities. I was not real impressed with one of her supporters who spat on my late wife as we went to a function in Eden once. You put up with those sorts of things. I was even prepared to put up with the press release that was issued in April 2005 that was purportedly from me which related to forestry activities. It made out that all of a sudden I was a born-again greenie and was not going to support good, sustainable forestry anymore. News outlets rang me to say: ‘We’re a bit confused about the press release. Is it fair dinkum?’ We had them sent through and I realised what was going on in that instance. I was even prepared to put up with that.

I was going to put out a press release once again highlighting these sorts of activities, but I looked at the letterhead—it was a pretty good copy—and I thought, ‘They really are going to town now with this sort of activity.’ But I was still prepared to let it go, until I got a phone call from Phil Mathie, who runs a logging company, Bruce Mathie and Co., at Narooma. A week or two earlier I had announced a grant of $165,000 to that company under the Forest Industry Structural Adjustment Package, a joint package between the Commonwealth and the states to assist companies moving to better sustainable forestry activities. They were able to access a grant of $165,000. It had been going on for some time. There is always a bit of argy-bargy between the Commonwealth and the states before the funding actually happens, but he knew it was potentially going to happen. Knowing that they might be getting this sort of assistance, any small business person would probably be setting up their affairs in such a way as to ensure that when the $165,000, which is not a small amount of money, arrived, it would substantially help the company. He would have been expecting it.

What he was not expecting was to get a letter from me a couple of weeks later—or supposedly from me—saying, ‘Sorry; the government has re-looked at this whole issue; it doesn’t believe that the private sector should benefit from taxpayers’ money and the grant is being rescinded.’ He rang my office in some distress when he got the letter. He said, ‘What the hell is going on?’ You can imagine the situation if, two weeks earlier, you had a grant of $165,000. People in that situation do not look at the date and think, ‘Oh, it is 1 April; that’s funny—ha, ha, it’s a prank.’ That does not happen. That was the point at which I said, ‘Enough is enough; I’m not going to put up with this.’ That is why I initially referred it. It was a difficult period, and it is relevant to something else I will say before I finish today. I think I said at the time I raised it in the parliament that I should have done it a touch earlier. But that April-May was a difficult time as far as my life is concerned, because it was the last two months of my wife’s life so I had to put a couple of things off, and a few other things were happening at the time as well. I was not prepared to continue with it and I referred it to the police. It went on for some time. The police do not act on these things very quickly, but, ultimately, after consultation with the Clerk of the House, I raised it in the parliament and it was the Speaker who correctly referred it to the Privileges Committee.

During the period of all these investigations, further letters appeared. In fact, the Privileges Committee supposedly received a letter from me on my letterhead, with my blue signature—which I always use—basically saying, ‘Why are you guys taking so long to deal with this matter?’ It did not come from me; it was another letter from Ms Swift. In my view she was effectively putting her finger up to the parliamentary processes, which is appalling. Even since this report was brought down two weeks ago she has been in the press basically saying, ‘I’m not going to take any notice of that.’ That is the way she operates. Also, last year, letters were sent to John Sparkes, who was the General Manager of South East Fibre Exports, supposedly from me, saying that I wanted to recommend him for an Order of Australia award because he had been so good in fighting the greenies. One was also sent to Phil Mathie but with riders. So the activities continued. Fortunately, John Sparkes never received the letter because, unfortunately, he died tragically in Canada two weeks earlier. So that is the sort of process that has brought it here today, with a reprimand from the parliament.

I have mentioned the activities of Ms Swift’s people over a number of years. She has got real form on this. In 1981 she was hauled before the Senate Privileges Committee for harassing Senator Brian Harradine with abusive phone calls. I understand it was at the time that Senator Harradine’s wife was dying, as someone said to me. I do not know the exact timing of that but that is as I understand the case. When her phone was traced as the source of the phone calls, and when she appeared before the committee, she said in defence:

I had a party at my house last night. I was not in the house all night—it is a flat, actually—but I was there probably for most of it. There were a lot of drunks at the party, not the least of which was me. Anyone could have used the telephone, including me. I must honestly say that I do not remember who made the call, whether it was me or someone else. That was the night of the Business Review magazine launching and there were a lot of drunks around. This is about all the light I can shed on it.

Since 1981 there has been this sort of activity. That is the attitude the person has towards the parliamentary processes: harassment and abuse of a senator, in that particular case.

The member for Canning said that he believed Ms Swift did not act alone, and I think he is right on that. I think that, in this case, Ms Swift has taken the rap, and probably for a good reason, because her live-in partner, Keith Hughes, a councillor on the Bega Valley Shire Council, I would suspect, was part of this as well, but the police could not necessarily make the connection. I guess he would want to keep away from these sorts of inquiries, because there would quite probably have been some substantial pressure put on him to resign as a councillor of the Bega Valley Shire Council. Also, several days ago, Mr Hughes was endorsed as the Green candidate for the seat of Eden-Monaro. I hope that all the people of Eden-Monaro understand the quality of the people who might put themselves forward for election at the federal election later this year. Given this whole sorry saga and how long it has gone on for—literally dating back to the early eighties—if the Greens have any moral fortitude, they would disendorse this person as their candidate.

In conclusion, once again I thank the committee for their diligent work on this. I think they have sent a very strong message. They could have fined this person or jailed them, but they decided to issue a severe reprimand. She has been found guilty of contempt of this parliament on five separate occasions. Nobody should take that as not being serious; it is very serious. This person does not seem to want to take it seriously, but she should. Given we are in the final year of this parliamentary term and some of these people get even more active politically, I would hope that a similar occurrence would lead to serious consideration of a fine or jail sentence.

Question agreed to.