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

My question is to the Prime Minister. It goes to the eligibility of members of cabinet to hold office. The Deputy Prime Minister told ABC Radio:

Unfortunately that's the law … They were members of parliament, but it's quite clear on Section 44 you can't be a member of parliament and have dual citizenship—it's black and white.

Why isn't the Prime Minister holding his deputy to his own standards?

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

The Leader of the Opposition should be aware that the Deputy Prime Minister does not claim to be a constitutional expert. The fact is—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

He does not. The Constitution—

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Members on my left! I remind members of what I said yesterday. We are not going to have a question time that continually obstructs the House, from members anywhere within it. The Prime Minister has the call.

Ms Butler interjecting—

The member for Griffith will leave under 94(a).

The member for Griffith then left the chamber.

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

The High Court has made it very clear in a number of cases that section 44 cannot be read literally and has to be read in accordance with its purpose and its intent, and there are limitations to its scope. There are a number of members on the Labor side—I can think of at least one who was a British citizen at the time she nominated for the last election. There's no question about that. To give the member for Braddon credit, her defence is that she had taken all reasonable steps to renounce her citizenship, but it had not been effective. If there were a strictly literal reading of section 44, she would be disqualified, because she certainly knew she was a British subject. So the point of the matter is: what the Deputy Prime Minister said in that interview was not a correct interpretation or description of the way the law operates. That's the fact.

Opposition members interjecting—

You can laugh as much as you like. But the constitution is interpreted by the High Court of Australia, and, as I've said, we are very, very confident that, when the matter of the eligibility of the member for New England comes before the High Court, he will be found to be qualified to sit in this parliament. That is consistent with the findings of the court.

But the real issue today—and I look forward to saying some more about it in the course of this question time—does go to an issue of allegiance and loyalty. No-one has ever doubted the loyalty of the Deputy Prime Minister to Australia, but what about the Leader of the Opposition conspiring with the Labour Party of New Zealand to undermine the government of Australia? He chose—in a way denounced by the Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party—to plot with his Labour Party comrades across the ditch to undermine the government— (Time expired)

Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—

Mr Keogh interjecting—

Mr Taylor interjecting—

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

The members for Lyons, Burt and Hume are warned.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the risks posed by foreign state interference in Australia's democratic processes and the measures the government is taking to protect the national interest?

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

We engage in this chamber in robust, even rowdy, debate, but we all operate—we trust—on the basis that our first loyalty is to Australia.

Mr Keogh interjecting—

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

The member for Burt will leave under 94(a).

The member for Burt then left the chamber.

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

What we have seen already in the Labor Party with Senator Dastyari is somebody who sold out the Labor Party's policy on the South China Sea in return for the payment of his legal expenses by a company called Yuhu Group led by Mr Xiangmo Huang, who had close links to China's Communist Party. That was cash for comment—no question about that whatsoever. Senator Dastyari was, for a very short time, dropped from the Labor executive as a result. In the last week we have seen the Australian Labor Party contact a Labour member in the New Zealand parliament and ask him to raise issues about the citizenship of the Deputy Prime Minister—

Mr Danby interjecting—

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

The member for Melbourne Ports is warned.

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

with the purpose and intent of undermining the Commonwealth of Australia's government. So outrageous and improper was that conduct that it has been condemned already by Jacinda Ardern, the Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. She has condemned it. The question that we have for the Leader of the Opposition in Australia is: does he have the same character as Jacinda Ardern? Is he prepared to name the person who went to New Zealand to get them to ask those questions? Is he prepared to condemn that use of a foreign political party and a foreign parliament to undermine the government of Australia? He could have—very simply, straightforwardly and honestly—asked the Deputy Prime Minister a question. He could have asked him a question. Why didn't he do that? I will tell you why.

Mr Champion interjecting—

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

The member for Wakefield will leave under 94(a).

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

If they asked the Deputy Prime Minister to demonstrate that he was in compliance with section 44, they would have to expose—

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

The member for Wakefield will leave under 94(a). The Prime Minister will resume his seat. I've asked the member for Wakefield to leave under 94(a).

Mr Champion interjecting—

That's because you couldn't stop yelling. I am not going to let some members of this House disrupt question time for other members of this House. I need to hear the question and the answer; other members of this House are here on behalf of their electorates to participate in the parliament; and it's certainly not what the public have come to see.

The member for Wakefield then left the chamber.

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

If they had asked the Deputy Prime Minister for details of his citizenship—

Mr Watts interjecting—

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

The member for Gellibrand will leave under 94(a).

The member for Gellibrand then left the chamber.

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

they would have then had to provide details of their own eligibility and their own compliance with section 44. We have had assurances that everyone on the Labor side is in compliance, but we have had no evidence. We've had that great barrister, the member for Isaacs, say he is satisfied they are all in compliance. But where are the documents? Let's see them. (Time expired)

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

Is the Manager of Opposition Business seeking to table a document?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek to table the statement from Peter Dunne MP in New Zealand, who says:

This is so much utter nonsense - while Hipkins' questions were inappropriate, they were not the instigator. Australian media inquiries were.

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Leave is not granted. I will just say to some of those on my left, I thought it was a fairly obvious point that the clock's ticking. It's their question time.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to the foreign minister's extraordinary press conference today where the minister announced that Australia's relationship with New Zealand would be determined by the partisan politics of New Zealand's next election. If the foreign minister won't be able to work with the New Zealanders, how will the foreign minister work with the Deputy Prime Minister?

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

As the Manager of Opposition Business, who is quite experienced, knows, that question was out of order and I believe it was drafted in a way to be out of order. I go to the next question.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister advise the House how serious it is for a political party in Australia to engage a foreign political party to undermine the Australian government?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is one of the fundamental responsibilities of nations around the world to protect the sovereignty of their country. Indeed, it is enshrined in our Constitution. And it is a principle of international law that nations do not seek to interfere in the domestic political processes of other countries. This morning there was an extraordinary development when it was revealed that the Leader of the Opposition had plumbed new depths in his underhanded behaviour when it was found that the Australian Labor Party was colluding with the New Zealand Labour Party, a foreign political party, to ask questions in the New Zealand parliament, a foreign parliament, designed deliberately to undermine confidence in the Australian government. Indeed, the New Zealand Leader of the Opposition herself admitted that the questions came from a member of the Labor Party in Australia.

The Leader of the Opposition must come clean on his role in this tawdry affair. While we were used to seeing the Leader of the Opposition do backroom deals and grubby negotiations while he was the leader of the union movement, it's quite another thing to bring his lack of ethics into international relations. It was the Leader of Opposition's party who sought to recruit members of the New Zealand Labour Party to ask questions in the New Zealand parliament that were deliberately designed to undermine confidence in the Australian parliament. The Leader of the Opposition has shown that he has no interest in the true concerns about section 44. Uncertainties are awash on his side of the parliament. There are so many members of the Labor party whose status is uncertain—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

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

The member for Isaacs is warned.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

yet he didn't raise it with the Prime Minister and he didn't raise it in our parliament, in our question time. I quote from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand, the former defence minister of New Zealand, who said a short time ago:

It's extraordinary that a New Zealand member of Parliament has allowed himself to be used by a party in a different country with an intent to bring another party in that country down.

It's quite extraordinary. I just don't think we've seen anything like this before.

This is the work of the Leader of the Opposition. He is unfit to hold office in this parliament.