Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to move a motion. It is:

That the House requires the Member for Dobell to make a statement to the House immediately, for a period not exceeding 10 minutes, about the matters arising from Fair Work Australia’s inquiry into the Health Services Union that relate to him.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Sturt moving immediately—That the House requires the Member for Dobell to make a statement to the House immediately, for a period not exceeding 10 minutes, about the matters arising from Fair Work Australia’s inquiry into the Health Services Union that relate to him.

In question time today, the Prime Minister again turned her back on the members of the Health Services Union and instead stood up for the member for Dobell. We know that she could have announced today that she would ask the New South Wales Labor Party to pay back to HSU members $267,000 of their money that was used in the campaign for Dobell in 2007. But we know that she will not, because, at this particularly precarious time for her leadership, while people like the minister for workplace relations and the member for Griffith are breathing down her neck, she will not take on Sussex Street.

Standing orders should be suspended today because the most urgent matter facing the parliament is its integrity and its reputation, and right now sitting in this chamber is a member—the member for Dobell—who has continued to fail to explain to the parliament his side of the story in one of the most tawdry matters that this parliament has ever had to witness or to deal with. Eight months ago, on 9 September 2011, the member for Dobell said, 'I will make a comprehensive statement in the near future.' He said that he would make a comprehensive statement in the near future, and now—eight months later—we are still waiting to hear it. We have moved on six occasions suspensions of standing orders to allow the member for Dobell to make a statement in this House so that we as members of parliament can be informed of his side of the story, and on six occasions the Labor Party and the crossbenchers have combined to defeat those suspensions of standing orders. Standing orders must be suspended so that we can debate this motion and pass this motion and so that the member for Dobell can keep his promise that he would make such a statement.

The Prime Minister has ducked and weaved on this issue faster than the full forward of the Western Bulldogs. We know now that the member for Dobell in fact excused himself from the caucus and that it was the member for Dobell who offered to suspend his membership of New South Wales Labor Party, and yet the Prime Minister in her statement to the press that she referred to in question time today insisted that in fact she had taken action. We know now that the Prime Minister was being her usual tricky self—tricky Julia.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will withdraw, and he will refer to the motion before the House.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Madam Deputy Speaker. The reason standing orders must be suspended and this motion debated is that the parliament has a right to know why we should not have suspended the member for Dobell yesterday. He needs to be given the opportunity today in this parliament to speak for just 10 minutes to put his side of the story so that we know as members of parliament that we should not have suspended him yesterday—a motion that was defeated by the Labor Party, who yet again sided with the member for Dobell, as the Prime Minister did today. It will give the member for Dobell, if this motion is carried, the opportunity to explain that fabled line that must be crossed—a line that the Prime Minister could not explain and that Jason and the Argonauts would find difficult to find should they seek to look for it. The Prime Minister said on 30 April, and I referred to this in question time:

… I can tell you very clearly now what that election will be about. It will be about who you stand for, whether you stand for the privileged few or whether you stand for working Australians and their families.

The member for Dobell can explain in this House today whether he is one of the privileged few that the Prime Minister is standing up for or one of the battlers—one of the battlers in the HSU; one of the 77,000 average members of the HSU who get paid something like $500 a week while this member for Dobell raked in $500,000 of HSU members' money over a period of time.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sturt is shouting, and there is no need, and he is straying greatly from the suspension.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reason that standing orders should be suspended is that the allegations which have been made against the member for Dobell and the findings that have been made by Fair Work Australia about the member for Dobell are so serious that they must be tested in this parliament and he should be required to make a 10-minute explanation to this parliament, because these are the most serious allegations that a member of parliament can face. They are allegations of corruption. They are allegations of the misuse of HSU members' money. They are findings of Fair Work Australia.

He needs to explain how it is that, when he was the national secretary of the HSU and when he was negotiating for his members to receive a meal allowance of $11.40 a day, he was using the HSU credit cards to pay $550 for meals at Forty One in the Sydney CBD and spending thousands of dollars of members' money. While they are on their meal allowances of $11.40, he is spending their money on overseas travel, on escort agencies, on fine dining and on personal items. We as members of parliament have a right to know his side of the story which so besmirches the reputation of this parliament. He needs to explain how it is that while he could find $276,000 of HSU members' money to spend on his own election in Dobell he was facilitating an agreement so that his workers could clean bedpans in aged-care facilities and hospitals at $500 a week. All members of the HSU would have liked to be the member for Dobell if they had known they could have found $276,000 of their own money to campaign for it, but no. He was lucky enough to be the national secretary and a favoured son of Sussex Street. Consider this. This is the reason that the suspension of standing orders should be carried so that he can explain himself to the House: it would have taken an HSU member 12 weeks of cleaning a hospital to pay for the escort services that the member for Dobell is alleged to have paid for—according to findings of Fair Work Australia—with their union dues in just one night.

To vote in favour of this motion would be a demonstration of support for the 77,000 members of the Health Services Union. To vote against it is a vote for continuing the protection racket that exists around the member for Dobell and that has protected him in this place through three years of questioning from the opposition. If the Prime Minister truly believes that the next election will be about who stands for the privileged few and who stands for working Australians, she would want to stand up for working Australians today and direct her caucus to support this motion. Why wouldn't she want to do that? Why wouldn't the crossbenchers and the Labor Party caucus vote for a motion that simply calls on the member for Dobell to have 10 minutes to explain his side of the story in one of the most tawdry episodes ever to besmirch the parliament? To vote against this motion—to vote this motion down, if that is the decision of the Labor Party and the crossbenchers—will mean essentially a continuation of the protection racket of the member for Dobell. What is the motivation for that in the Labor Party? He is no longer a member of their caucus. Why would the Labor Party stand up today and argue against a motion that asks an Independent member to explain himself to the parliament? The truth is that he is not an Independent member at all. He is as much a member of the Labor caucus today as he was 10 days ago. The Labor Party continues to accept his vote. They know that he is as much a Labor man today as he was 10 days ago. Nothing has changed except that the Prime Minister found out about the Fair Work inquiry report—when it was coming out and what was in it—and she did everything she could to try to dispatch this tar baby which has so damaged her government.

I cannot imagine anyone in the House wanting to turn their back on the 77,000 members of the HSU by voting against this motion, and I cannot imagine some of the members of the Labor Party caucus of good conscience seriously wanting to see their vote recorded as part of the continuing protection racket that protects the member for Dobell. The member for Banks is a good man; he knows in his conscience that it is wrong to continue to protect the member for Dobell, and I have known him for 20 years. He knows that members of the HSU deserve better than that, and I call on him and other members of the caucus to stand with the opposition and require an explanation. If they do not, they will confirm what Mark Latham once said— (Time expired)

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Standing orders must be suspended, because the allegations contained in the Fair Work Australia report go to the heart of the integrity of this parliament. The report has found, amongst other things, that the member for Dobell misused the funds of the Health Services Union to support his election to this parliament. This is a very serious allegation. Let me be clear. A member of this parliament has been accused of a serious fraud that underpins his presence in this place. That is why standing orders must be suspended, because this finding alone surely calls into question the member's legitimacy in this chamber. We are not talking about trivial sums of money. We are not talking about small amounts of union resources. Fair Work Australia has found that the member for Dobell misappropriated around $270,000 for the purposes of his campaign for the 2007 election so he could take a place in this chamber.

There must be serious doubt about whether the member for Dobell would have been successful in his preselection and in the 2007 general election had he not misused those union funds, as found by Fair Work Australia—the government's own creation. This is not a matter that can be swept under the carpet or ignored, and that is why standing orders must be suspended, because the Prime Minister has repeatedly vowed her personal support for the member for Dobell. Recently she claimed that a line had been crossed that necessitated the suspension of the member for Dobell from the Australian Labor Party—although the Prime Minister is yet to answer the question as to whether Labor is still paying his legal fees.

The Prime Minister also claimed that she understands that 'matters concerning Mr Thomson have caused Australians to become concerned about standards in public life'. The Prime Minister said that Australians are 'seeing a dark cloud' when they look at this parliament. If we conclude—and for the sake of this debate let us assume the Prime Minister's version is truthful—that the Prime Minister judged the investigation and the findings of Fair Work Australia sufficiently serious to render the member for Dobell unfit to attend meetings of the federal Labor caucus, how is it that the Prime Minister believes that the member for Dobell is fit to continue to take his place in the parliament?

He is unfit for the Labor Party room but the Prime Minister believes that somehow he remains a fit and proper person to take his place in the parliament and to continue to provide his vote in support of this government.

It is important to note that the member for Dobell has consistently proclaimed his innocence. As recently as 29 April the member for Dobell said: 'I am confident that in a reasonably short period of time the truth will out and I will be vindicated.' It is worth noting that that statement was prior to the release of the Fair Work Australia report—and, rather than being vindicated, the member for Dobell has been subjected to dozens of damning findings of alleged serious misconduct during his time as the National Secretary of the Health Services Union. The fact that these allegations are crucial elements of the circumstances involving the election of the member for Dobell to this parliament, necessitates an explanation from the member to this House.

Standing orders must be suspended to provide the member with the opportunity to explain why he considers the Fair Work Australia report to be a 'joke' and why it found that he had illegally used $200,000 of HSU funds to employ staff to work on his election campaign and $70,000 to directly support his election campaign, $103,000 of unexplained cash withdrawals and dining, entertainment and the procurement of prostitute expenses of more than $80,000. It is a matter of the gravest importance for the parliament for one of the elected members to have been found by an independent government authority of having fraudulently funded their campaign to gain admittance to our national parliament. Those of us elected into parliament are greatly honoured to have the opportunity to serve our electorates. I respectfully urge the members of the crossbench to support this motion; otherwise, the dark cloud will be a dark winter of discontent. (Time expired)

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Mr Abbott interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will stop constantly interjecting across the table. The Leader of the House has the call.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition is happy to interject but was not happy to be associated with this motion to suspend standing orders before the House today. Just like yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition thinks that he can allow the opposition to get down into the gutter day after day and somehow it has nothing to do with him—distancing himself from it. But the fact is we know that there is no process, no convention, no tradition and no institution that this Leader of the Opposition will not trash in his pursuit of power.

What we see day after day—now for the 53rd occasion—is an attempt to suspend standing orders. This is the day after the national government has handed down our budget. It is a significant budget that returns the budget to surplus whilst providing support for wealth creation and opportunity. Today we had one question about the budget from the shadow Treasurer and one question from the shadow finance minister about the budget, and that is it—nothing else to say on the day after the federal budget. Surely, that is unprecedented in Australia's history?

What this motion is really about is trying to ensure that time is taken up rather than getting on to the substance that we should be dealing with arising out of the budget produced last night. This morning on the schoolkids bonus budget bill debate, we had two opposition members down to speak—just two. But as the day went on the list grew. Up to 19 speakers from the opposition are now on the list, dragging out debate because they do not want the TV news tonight to show them saying no to families. That is what they want to do. That is their priority. The fact is that that is the issue that we should be getting on to after we have the MPI from the opposition—which is of course also about the budget.

The opposition come in here day after day and want, in terms of their motion to suspend standing orders, this parliament—they have backed off from yesterday's motion but it is still pretty consistent—to determine what are quite rightly legal matters. We do have a separation of powers. Indeed, their rhetoric is completely inconsistent with what they said prior to their own issues. In fact, the Leader of the Opposition, in speaking about Mary Jo Fisher, said:

The matter is now before the courts where I understand it will be contested and she should be extended the presumption of innocence.

That is what he said on 24 July 2011. And then of course we know that he went on to say that she did not vote on anything, even though we know that she voted on everything, including the clean energy bills.

Indeed, Senator Robert Hill had this to say about Mal Colston: 'We should not forget the rules of natural justice in this matter.' John Howard had this to say about Mal Colston:

... at the moment he’s been treated worse than anybody else who’s charged with a crime. I mean nobody else has been treated like that. He is, at the moment, being denied the presumption of innocence.

But you do not need to go any further than the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition had this to say on 9 March 2007 about Mr Laming:

The matter is really now before the police and perhaps the Criminal and Misconduct Commission in Queensland, and let's let those authorities make their investigations and come to any conclusion.

He's a backbench member of parliament and I think he's entitled to stay in the parliament until these bodies have come to their conclusions.

Indeed, in 2007, former Prime Minister John Howard said about those same issues that using parliamentary privilege to make allegations against political opponents is 'the cheapest game in the book'.

The member for Dobell has indicated that he will make a statement in his own time and he should be left to do that. That is what the member for Dobell has said and that is entirely appropriate given the circumstances. Craig has said he will make a statement; he should be left to do that. That is what we would expect under all circumstances. But if we go down the road of trying to present this place as judge and jury then we destroy the separation of powers and the balance between political representatives and the judicial wing, which is a very dangerous step indeed. When the member for Sturt got on his feet and asked for leave to move a motion, for a second there I thought about letting him do it. I thought about granting him leave and then amending it so that he could explain to the parliament his association with James Ashby and what went on in the Speaker's office that evening and in subsequent liaisons between Mr Ashby and various members of the coalition.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House will return to the suspension motion.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The fact is we should not go down the road of saying that this place should replace appropriate judicial processes, or pass resolutions calling upon people who have legal rights and who are entitled to get legal advice which is not prejudiced by any decision of this parliament. I said yesterday that if any of the allegations—which are serious—against the member for Dobell are proven, then he should face the full force of the law. But it is not up to this parliament to determine what those circumstances are. It is not up to this parliament to make judgements about a whole range of issues or legal actions which are before the court, whether they concern members of the government, members of the opposition or crossbenchers—either the member for Indi or any other member of parliament. It is not up to us to go down that track.

I would have thought that the Leader of the Opposition understood that, given his history of understanding the importance of independent judicial processes, rather than assuming that allegations, once made, are proven. That is why we should reject the suspension of standing orders. The member for Dobell has indicated that he will make a statement before the parliament; it should be left at that. Think about the consequences of a majority government being able to make decisions in their tactics committee about doing things which change the democratically elected balance of a parliament. Think about the consequences of that. That is why this suspension motion should not be supported.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek the call on indulgence.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have three seconds.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to indicate to parliament that I will be seeking to make a statement, probably in excess of 10 minutes and closer to 15 minutes, on the next occasion parliament sits.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dobell has been given as much indulgence as I can give but, if everybody wants this, then I will obey the will of the House. I will allow the indulgence for the member for Dobell.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The next sitting week is when I intend to make a statement. There has been a comprehensive and very long Fair Work Australia report of some 1,100 pages, which we did not have access to until late Monday night. It is appropriate that I have time to go through that so that I can make a comprehensive statement to parliament, which is what I intend to do. This week is an important week, being budget week. It is a week when families around Australia are looking at what this government could do and that, quite frankly, is what this week should be spent on. But I indicate to parliament that I intend to make a statement in the next sitting week.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.