Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz said this afternoon: ‘The test is not whether we make mistakes; it’s how we deal with it.’ In other words, if I am a bank robber and I go along and I rob the bank and threaten the employees and whatever else, and then when I am found I hand over the money that I got from the bank to charity and I apologise, then it is okay. So it is only a question of being caught and how well you handle being caught that is an issue here for the government.

We would rather see things done rather differently. We would rather that this parliament was the place that determined such things—not the Prime Minister, not Senator Brandis, not individuals within the Liberal Party. It is a parliamentary matter, and I remind senators that one resolution about senators’ interests says:

Any senator who:

(a)

knowingly fails to provide a statement of registrable interests to the Registrar of Senators’ Interests by the due date;

(b)

knowingly fails to notify any alteration of those interests to the Registrar of Senators’ Interests within 35 days of the change occurring; or

(c)

knowingly provides false or misleading information to the Registrar of Senators’ Interests;

shall be guilty of a serious contempt of the Senate—

not the Prime Minister; the Senate—

and shall be dealt with by the Senate accordingly ...

That is the whole point here. It is not up to the Prime Minister to say, ‘Well, we’ll let him off this time because he really is a nice guy and he didn’t mean to do it, and in fact we’ll take his ministerial position away from him.’ And that will be seen to be—what was the phrase being used over and over again? A high price to be paid. So he has already paid the high price! Judge and jury over there have determined that Senator Santoro is a bit guilty— (Time expired)