Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Chris Evans) and the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ronaldson and McGauran today relating to the Transport Workers Union.

In particular I would point out that Senator Conroy would have us believe that the withdrawal this morning of Mr Tony Sheldon from a position on the Transport Commission was some accident—it just happened to occur last night. It was totally unrelated to the Sunday program yesterday. It was a pure coincidence that he took his name off last night after the Sunday program aired yesterday morning. Senator Conroy, you must believe in the tooth fairy, I suspect, if you believe that story. It is simply not true.

I want to go through a number matters in relation to this. I want to start by saying that this government got here on the basis of openness and transparency. In 110 days we have seen none of that at all—not one piece of it. We have seen the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, talk about openness and transparency and his desire to address the issue of political donations. He refused last week to accept a motion supported by everyone else in this chamber. Part of that was to address the appalling revelation we had yesterday morning about the activities of the Transport Workers Union. This was a slush fund for the ALP, taken by the ALP with no questions asked and knowing full well that it would never be disclosed to where it should have been disclosed. Have we heard a word from the Prime Minister in relation to this? Have we heard the Prime Minister say, ‘I will repay that money to the TWU’? No, we have not. What Mr Rudd has said is, ‘I’m prepared to accept slush funds from the TWU, but any other donations are going to be subject to some new rules.’ Let us see whether Mr Rudd is serious about this, and let us see him support the coalition, the Greens, Family First and the Democrats in having this matter addressed by the joint standing committee, which I hope it will do.

I want to refer to some comments from someone from the TWU—I think he is from the TWU; I know Mr Pat Murray, who is a whistleblower along with Mr Tony O’Donnell, is actually being sued by the TWU for $250,000 for allegedly giving the Sunday program documents relating to this rort, to this slush fund, to this illegal activity. An article in the Australian this morning stated:

Among serving and former union officials interviewed by the program—

that is, the Sunday program—

TWU organiser Tony O’Donnell claimed union members were not aware of the fund’s existence and he disputed that funds were used for training.

“There is evidence here of secret commissions, possibly corrupt commissions under the NSW Crimes Act,” Mr O’Donnell said.

Mr Sheldon strongly defended his union yesterday, describing the non-disclosure of political donations as an “administrative error” ...

An administrative error? A slush fund that was used to make donations directly to Labor candidates was an administrative error?