Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Justice. I refer to the email from the minister's office to Senator Leyonhjelm which refers to the promise to sunset the ban on lever-action shotguns—and I quote: 'In return, Senator Leyonhjelm will vote against the Labor amendment to the migration amendment. Please confirm Senator Leyonhjelm's agreement.' Minister, how are these issues connected? Why did the government seek to weaken gun laws to secure votes in the Senate on unrelated legislation?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have got to love this guy. He is waving around an email like he has come across some sort of silver bullet. Senator Leyonhjelm has put this in the public domain about half a dozen times before today. This is not new information. The reason that he is doing this—the reason why he is grabbing hold of all this stuff like a drowning man grabbing the nearest life raft—is that he does not want to talk about the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the body that this side of the House believes is vital to restore law and order in our construction industry, the body that will ensure that we have a building and construction industry that is actually productive and world standard, and the body that will stop people working on our building sites being intimidated in the way that we saw in that horrendous video today. That is what is happening here.

I have answered all the questions in relation to my dealings with Senator Leyonhjelm and in relation to what we are doing about lever-action shotguns with a magazine capacity of over five. We will continue to prosecute the case for the ABCC and we will do that because, on this side of the House, we believe in the rule of law.