Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am. I draw your attention to standing order 74, which provides for that. The matter is an important one. It has become all the more important that these questions be answered since, following the release of the book The Hollow Men: A Study in the Politics of Deception by Mr Nicky Hager in New Zealand, a suppression order was issued by the then Leader of the Opposition in New Zealand to prevent that information—similar to the information being sought in the questions here—being put on the public record in that country. It is now history, only a week old, that the court order was to be lifted and the New Zealand leader of the National Party, the Leader of the Opposition there, resigned before that lifting occurred. What was found out, however, about the very serious intervention by the Exclusive Brethren in the democratic process in New Zealand was that every member of the conservative party in that country had been approached by the Exclusive Brethren and, in all cases except three, money was taken from the National Party members of the New Zealand parliament who were aspiring to government. That is, the colleagues of this Australian government across the Tasman were approached—