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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Sport (Senator Arbib) and the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations and Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senators Ronaldson and Fierravanti-Wells today relating to the House of Representatives Member for Dobell, Mr Thomson.

Last week, on three consecutive days during question time, the Prime Minister asserted her full confidence in the member for Dobell, Craig Thomson. She asserted that Mr Thomson was, in her opinion, doing a fine job. She asserted that she hoped that Mr Thomson would remain in parliament for many years to come. By that very act, she made the integrity of Craig Thomson the standard of the integrity of her own government. She made the credibility of Mr Thomson's denials the standard of the credibility of her own government. Mr Thomson's credibility and integrity are now the very slender threads by which the Gillard government hangs.

One thing that has emerged as a feature of this burgeoning and rather distasteful scandal has been the way in which the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party was forced to try to cover up what was going on during Mr Thomson's days as the national secretary of the Health Services Union by paying his costs and the costs of the defendant, Fairfax Media Pty Ltd, in the defamation claim that he commenced against them—perhaps the most disastrous defamation action since Oscar Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry. It has now been revealed by Mr Thomson's belatedly lodged declaration of interests that more than $150,000 from the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party was provided to Mr Thomson to settle that case. Although Mr Thomson claimed that the matter had been resolved on his terms, we know that was not true; we now know that the action was discontinued and he had to pay Fairfax's lawyers' costs. We also know, as has now been disclosed, that the Minister for Sport and the former general secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party, Senator Mark Arbib, was the central figure in organising that very shabby deal.

Like me, Mr Deputy President, you were present before the winter recess when we heard the valedictory speech of former senator Steve Hutchins. In his parting words, former senator Steve Hutchins was at pains to remind the Senate of the depth of the sleaze, corruption and dishonesty that is the rotten core of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party, particularly the New South Wales Right—the area of Australian politics of which the member for Dobell is a protege and a favourite son. Who is the other protege and favourite son of the New South Wales Right? The former general secretary, Senator Arbib, who brokered the deal. So the Gillard government and Prime Minister Gillard herself are not only tied, hand and foot, to the integrity of Craig Thomson but also bound, hand and foot, to the integrity of the New South Wales Labor Party machine—the machine that former senator Steve Hutchins described in such palpable and descriptive terms in his parting words to the Senate. Let the Prime Minister be judged by the standards of Mark Arbib and the New South Wales Right.