Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General and the Minister for Industrial Relations. On 3 December last year the Attorney-General outlined to this House the situation regarding a New South Wales police investigation in response to questions from the opposition. Will the Attorney-General now update this House on this matter, noting the seriousness of these allegations of criminal conduct against members of this House?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Obviously, these are very serious matters, and there have been two developments with respect to these matters today.

Ironically, the first development was the moving of a motion this morning by members opposite, spoken to by the shadow A-G. That motion said that the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction had created and disseminated a fraudulent document. The motion didn't argue that or assert it. It wasn't even an accusation; it just stated that as a matter of fact.

Now, the second statement today came from the Australian Federal Police. It said, 'The AFP identified there is no evidence to indicate that you, the Minister for Energy, were involved in falsifying information.' No evidence that he was involved in falsifying information!

It has been previously noted that meritless political referrals to key law enforcement agencies waste resources that could be allocated to the investigation of serious matters, such as homicides, terrorism offences, drug offences and offences against children. As the New South Wales police commissioner said, 'They are a great diverter of my time.'

It has also been previously noted that the shadow Attorney-General has either made or overseen eight meritless political referrals from Labor, with zero charges laid, referred or pursued. Zero! And so the information before the House is that the strike rate is now zero from 10. It's not zero from nine, because the shadow Attorney-General first referred it to a charge that he suggested to the New South Wales police under New South Wales law. They said nothing. Then it went to the AFP—two more strikes, zero from 10!

Now I noted previously, to try to provide some context and scale to this, that the most test cricket ducks in test cricket history were from a poor person, Ajit Agarkar, who had five in a row. I can now inform the House that the record in all first-class cricket innings without scoring a run was set in 1930 by an English cricketer, Seymour Clark—nine innings, zero runs. He has now been beaten! Zero from 10! If the shadow A-G were a cricket player, he would be the worst first-class batsmen in cricket history. In fact, I have been deep in ministerial discussions with the Minister for Health to see if we can provide the shadow A-G with a referral pad so that he can save time with his referrals just by writing the name and the offence and sending it off to the police! Perhaps now you might ask yourselves if you regret it. And do you apologise? (Time expired)

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on that note I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.