Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am concerned and I am going to come to my concerns in a moment, Senator Ronaldson. Let us look at the history. These allegations that were aired on the Sunday program yesterday actually were raised well over a year ago. At the time, Mr Hockey, the then minister, established some eight inquiries into these same allegations. There were inquiries through the Taxation Office, through ASIC and through the New South Wales police. There were inquiries in respect of possible breaches of New South Wales electoral laws, inquiries in respect of activities regarding safety and inquiries through the Industrial Registry and the Workplace Authority. A whole gamut of authorities were looking at these allegations. To date those inquiries have not found anything that would warrant any prosecution. There have been no findings of any illegal conduct. But those inquiries are ongoing.

What we have, however, today, following the Sunday program rerunning this same issue, is Senator Ronaldson getting up in question time and asking the minister the question: ‘Why won’t the government set up a judicial enquiry into illegal activities?’ Senator Ronaldson should know better. I understand that he has got legal qualifications. He is asking the government to set up a judicial inquiry, but at the same time he has already found the persons guilty. He said, ‘These are illegal activities’. Senator Ronaldson knows—as every senator on the opposite side and in this parliament knows—that if you have any specific allegations of criminal activity, you take them to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. As has been indicated by the ministers in responding to these questions today, the government’s approach is entirely appropriate. The Australian Electoral Commission has the capacity to look at whether or not there have been any breaches of electoral laws. I challenge Senator Ronaldson and Senator McGauran: if you have allegations, take them to the appropriate authorities. But of course you do not. You come in here and you raise them in here. That is what you do. You already find people guilty—in this parliament, where you are protected by parliamentary privilege—but you do not have the courage to go outside and approach the appropriate law enforcement authorities and raise the issues with them.

Let us look at the performance of the now opposition when they were in government, when it comes to electoral funding. This is the party that established the Millennium Forum in the home state of Senator McGauran and in the home state of Senator Ronaldson. The Millennium Forum was simply a ruse to hide millions of dollars of donations to the Liberal Party for electoral funding. You could not possibly disclose who those donors were. Not only that: when last in government—after the previous election, when you finally got the numbers in your own right in the Senate—you changed the electoral laws to raise the limit for nondisclosure of donors for electoral donations from $1,500 to $10,000. This meant that an individual or a company could donate up to or $90,000 by donating $10,000 to every state branch, every territory division and the national body of a political party. That is what you could do, without having to disclose who the donors were. It went from $1,500 to $10,000. That was your legacy for electoral donations. So do not come in here and lecture us about proprietary. Fair dinkum! You should be ashamed of yourselves for even having the hide to raise the issue.

I finish on this note. Do you remember the Australian Wheat Board? You stand up there with this pious, unctuous concern about supposed illegalities, bribes, under-the-table payments and so on. When you were in government, you were responsible for $300 million of donations to Saddam Hussein’s regime. You knew about it and you sat back. Under your administration, ministers and officials of the Wheat Board knew about these disgraceful payments and did nothing. (Time expired)