Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to announce today that scientists have identified a gene in Liberal Party members that causes them amnesia. Those opposite are great forgetters. They have written Malcolm Fraser out of history. They forget that their current Prime Minister, when he was Treasurer, left this country with double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, double-digit interest rates and a deficit, in constant dollars expressed today, of $25 billion. They have forgotten that, but what they have really forgotten are all the questions they asked between 1993 and 1996 about the Lodge. I remember that because I had to sit where Senator Minchin is sitting today—because Senator Gareth Evans, the then Leader of the Government in the Senate, who was the foreign minister, often was not here. I had to answer stupid questions about the mythical heated dog kennels that did not exist. I had to answer questions about teak tables. I had to answer questions about Gould prints in the cabinet room, which, by the way, have appreciated in value five times over. If you wonder why we occasionally pay you back by asking questions about Kirribilli, the Lodge or the Prime Minister’s office, it is simply to say that you did exactly that so you can have a bit back.

Look at the two issues that have come up recently. Take the dining room in the Prime Minister’s office—each extra seat at the table was going to cost $125,000. This typifies this government—not the expenditure but the response. They responded later in the day by saying: ‘We’re cancelling this project. We hadn’t realised the cost.’ That would be believable except that they were told the costs in the previous December. They sacrificed this project not to save money but because the political heat was on them. The Liberal senator who spoke previously said, ‘Surely you can have one of these functions at Kirribilli.’ But this is the first, and this differs. If you just invited the Liberal Party delegates to your national convention out to Kirribilli for drinks, there is no problem because that is the history; that has happened over a number of years. But what you invited as part of a package was your business observers. You advertised it and put it up front; it was part of the inducement to sign up business observers that they could go and have drinks at Kirribilli. Frankly, what difference is there between that and the criticisms by your neocon friends in the United States of Bill Clinton’s use of the White House—the sleepovers and the fundraising that occurred? There is no difference whatsoever! This was an abuse of the Kirribilli residence.

I do not quite share the view of Senator Sherry. I do not mind the Prime Minister occupying Kirribilli and the Lodge. If you go back through the record from 1996, you will not find criticism by me of that actual decision, because, given the cost of security at the other house and all the rest of it, it did not necessarily make bad sense to occupy both. But when you do occupy both, you have a higher responsibility to the Australian taxpayer to minimise the costs. While I am on the question of costs, frankly I do not believe the explanation. I do not think you can cater for 225 people at $20 a head. That has not been my experience in all the functions that I have run. I am told that there was seafood, soup and other things and that the catering costs came in at $9 a head. I tell you what, I want to get a piece of that for all the functions we have to run. I want to know the name of the caterers. We will use them even though you have used them. We will put our principles aside, because this price is too good.

There are other issues that we have raised that we want answers to. If you have actually charged people to go, we want to know whether you had a liquor licence. It is not so much that we want you prosecuted over that, but you insist on the imposition of the law on others—that there be no exceptions, that people be prosecuted if they offend against the law—and you are subject to the same law. You are subject to the Australian electorate act, which says that donations in kind have to be declared. There is no doubt here that there have been donations in kind. We want to know whether you will in fact pass that on to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Finally, I have to say this. Every time I hear a leader get up in this place and say, ‘We acted on advice from the Prime Minister’s department,’ I would like to see that advice—and the reason for not tabling it this time is nothing more than weasel words. If it is a well-argued and cogent case then maybe we will concede some ground, but I bet it is not. (Time expired)