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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister's previous answer. Should the government's policy on secret payments be extended to situations where there are secret payments to settle litigation which alleged breaches of the Corporations Law, such as occurred in the collapse of HIH? Is this another example, just like penalty rates, where the Prime Minister believes it is one rule for him and his big business friends and another for workers?

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

I dealt with that in my previous answer, but is the honourable member seriously saying that litigation should not be settled? Is that what he would like? Is that, perhaps, the brief-less barrister's dream—a litigation without end? Is he saying that litigation should not be settled or that no litigation can be settled unless the terms are disclosed? If that is his proposal, then he should raise it and he can move a private member's bill. It is not one that would be welcomed by his profession or, indeed, by anybody else.