Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly, Senator Brandis. What we saw today, and in fact we saw it in relation to Mr Thomson's defamation proceedings and we saw it again with Senator Arbib and with the Prime Minister in the other place today when the Manager of Opposition Business moved a motion for Mr Thomson to come in and make an explanation, is that every time the key players in this debacle, this murky affair, are given the opportunity to come and defend themselves they refuse to do so. The member for Dobell wrote to his colleagues prior to the defamation proceedings being discontinued where he had to pay the costs—so two and two still equals four—and said: 'I am innocent of these matters. I am completely innocent.' We had a media report today where the member for Dobell looked a senior New South Wales ALP figure in the eyes and said, 'I didn't do it.' The member for Dobell had the opportunity in court to have his view of these claims tested and he squibbed it.

Senator Arbib had some extremely grievous allegations made against him over the weekend in various newspapers. Today he had two minutes to answer every one of those claims. You would think that if Senator Arbib were not guilty as charged he would have taken those two minutes, and then the next minute and the next minute after that, to say, 'I am not guilty of these charges.' Did he do so? No, he did not. Did he have the opportunity to clear his name today? Yes, he did. Has he had the opportunity since the weekend to clear his name in relation to these charges? Yes, he has. He has chosen not to do so.

Every single person listening to this debate in the last week knows that this matter has gone from the seat of Dobell to the seat of power in this country. This matter has gone from Mr Thomson to the Prime Minister. Everyone in this chamber knows that it is completely untenable for the Prime Minister of this country to make a claim as late as last Monday afternoon that she had not had any in-depth discussion with Mr Thomson in relation to this matter. This has been in the public domain for in excess of 12 months. This involves one of her own members of parliament being accused of misappropriating funds. Misappropriating funds is about as serious an allegation as you can make against an elected member of parliament, and she was trying to tell the Australian people that she had not had, to use her words, 'detailed discussions' with Mr Thomson about this matter as late as last Monday.

There are two reasons for that. There can only be two rational reasons: either she is going to defend this man to the absolute death to maintain her position as Prime Minister or she did not want to be told the truth because she might have been forced to act against him. There was a demonstration outside this place today. It was a demonstration by people who have spent thousands upon thousands of their own money to come here and protest against the way this country has been run, to protest against the behaviour of the Prime Minister of this country. It is completely inappropriate and continues to be completely untenable for the leader of a political party to sit back and watch a member destroy her party. It is unbelievable that the Prime Minister of this country will sit back and watch a member tear her prime ministership apart as well. The Prime Minister has no choice but to act. The Prime Minister is now completely and utterly implicated in the payment of money by the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party to Mr Thomson to protect him from bankruptcy and it is about time she came clean.