Linda Kirk (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion to take note of answers moved by Senator Ronaldson in response to answers given today in the Senate by Senator Evans. This is a matter that was raised yesterday, and here we have it again, raised by Senator Ronaldson. His concern seems to be that there ought to be some form of judicial inquiry set up in order to investigate certain allegations that the TWU bullied transport companies into paying money into a union training fund and donated funds going this way to the members of the ALP in New South Wales. This is the allegation that has been raised. In fact, these allegations go back some time. This is not a new issue. However, we still see Senator Ronaldson going on and on about it.

As I mentioned, this matter was actually raised in September of last year, when the Howard government was still in office. At the time, the former minister for employment and workplace relations, Mr Hockey, announced that the government would refer the allegations that had been made to a range of specialist bodies for them to investigate. In fact, at the time, there were some eight inquiries established into these allegations. Inquiries were set up by the Taxation Office, through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and through the New South Wales Police. All of these were established in order to see whether or not there had been any breaches of Australian law. A whole gamut of authorities were established to have a look at this matter. The Workplace Authority and the Australian Industrial Registry also undertook inquiries. Today, of course, we hear concerns raised by Senator Ronaldson in relation to additional information that has been provided now by the TWU to the Australian Electoral Commission.

As I said, there have been numerous inquiries that have been established to look at these allegations and so far, to date, there have not been any conclusions drawn by these authorities. None of these inquiries to date have found anything at all that would warrant prosecution. There have been no findings whatsoever of illegal conduct. Most importantly, these inquiries are ongoing; they are not yet exhausted. Surely it is the case that, when you refer a matter such as this to specialised areas of government, both at a state and a federal level, the body with the appropriate legislative responsibility and the investigative powers, ought to be able to conduct a thorough examination of the issues, and they should be able to complete their inquiries—take them right through to the end—before any other sort of judicial inquiry, such as Senator Ronaldson has suggested, is established. The appropriate course of action, clearly, in this instance, is to allow these investigations, which are on foot, particularly that of the Australian Electoral Commission, to proceed.

As Senator Evans said in response to the questions asked by Senator Ronaldson, if Senator Ronaldson or any other senator—or any other person, for that matter—has any information on these matters that they think is relevant then they ought to provide it to these authorities. If they have any information that they believe relates to criminal activity on the part of any person then they ought to refer that information to either the state police, if necessary, or to the Australian Federal Police, whichever body happens to have the jurisdiction over the matter.

So, really, this is a pretty clear-cut case. The AEC has an ongoing investigation, as do a number of other bodies, and we should allow these processes to be completed. They should be able to go right through to the very end and draw the kinds of conclusions that they find, on the basis of evidence. Why would we spend taxpayers money establishing a judicial inquiry at this point in time? Why would we not wait until the authorities who do have the jurisdiction to look at these matters have completed their inquiries? Here we have Senator Ronaldson making allegations, suggesting that people are guilty and finding people guilty when there has not been a proper process in place. There has been no procedural fairness or natural justice provided to these people. As I said, if there are allegations that Senator Ronaldson has to make or if there is any information that he or any other person has then he ought to refer this information to the relevant authorities, whether it be the AEC, the state police or the Australian Federal Police. That is the proper process to follow, and I encourage Senator Ronaldson to be patient and wait for the outcome. (Time expired)