George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, for as long as I have been in the Senate I, like you and others, have listened to endless hours of sanctimonious lectures by Senator Bob Brown and other Green senators but in particular by Senator Bob Brown about political donations. We have sat through endless hours of sanctimonious speeches by Senator Brown about the big end of town and its alleged relationship with major political parties. Yet now we discover that the party which Senator Brown leads, the Australian Greens, was last year the recipient of the largest political donation in Australian history—$1.6 million.

There is nothing of itself wrong with a large donation being received by a political party as long as disclosure obligations are met and the other requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act are met. But what makes this a particularly serious case, what makes this case approach the borders of corruption is that we now know that in public speeches both beyond parliament and within the Senate chamber Senator Brown and Senator Milne have sought to advance the commercial interests of that particular donor, Mr Graeme Wood. They did so yesterday in a question asked by Senator Milne and they did so again today in another question asked by Senator Milne of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig.

The background of this is that Mr Wood is seeking to bid for the purchase of a major industrial complex in Tasmania, the Triabunna woodchip mill. His competitor in that bidding is another consortium known as the Aprin consortium trading under the name Fibre Plus Tasmania. Mr Wood is in direct commercial competition with Aprin to acquire the Triabunna woodchip mill. Mr Wood last year gave $1.6 million to the Australian Greens. In the sequence of questions, comments and other public utterances which were recited by Senator Abetz in his contribution, Greens senators—all of whom I might say have absented themselves from the chamber for this debate—have asked questions in order to damage the interests of the Aprin consortium and therefore of necessity to advance the interests of Mr Graeme Wood and his company.

When Senator Abetz and I in the opposition allege that there is a direct conflict of interest we do not do so lightly, but the facts do not admit of controversy. Of two competing commercial parties Mr Wood and Aprin, one of them, Mr Wood's company, paid $1.6 million to the Australian Greens last year, and in the months since and as recently as question time today a series of questions and statements have come from Greens senators—and in the Tasmanian parliament as well by Greens members of the Tasmanian parliament—seeking to damage the interests of Mr Wood's commercial competitor. There is a direct relationship between these events. Senator Brown, if he had any spine, would come into the Senate chamber and explain himself.