Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Commonwealth, waive legal privilege in relation to the government's communications with the Solicitor-General about the WA kickbacks scandal so the truth can be revealed?

Mr Pyne interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House is delaying the Prime Minister.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only kickbacks scandal that is being investigated today is the one relating to Cesar Melhem and the Fair Work Commission. That is what is being investigated today. It is that type of corruption that the opposition seeks to protect by its trenchant resistance to the reforms represented by the registered organisations bill, happily passed now by the parliament, and their continued opposition to the restoration of the Australian Building and Construction Commission. They are the kickbacks fingered by the Heydon royal commission—exposed. And what has happened to those responsible for it?

They have been rewarded. Cesar Melham, the Leader of the Opposition's protege in the Australian Workers' Union, now sits in the Victorian parliament. And, of course, Kimberley Kitching, who was also recommended to be considered for prosecution by the Heydon royal commission, now sits in the Senate. So that is the pathway for those who break the law, those who defy the law, in the labour movement today. This is not the Labor Party of Bob Hawke. He stood up to crooked unions. The party that the Leader of the Opposition leads today defends them again and again.