Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Macdonald today relating to not-for-profit journalism enterprises and an independent media inquiry.

I have always wondered why Senator Bob Brown was named Senator Brown. I wonder if it has anything whatsoever to do with the proverbial brown paper bag because Senator Brown and financial contributions have had a very bad history. Who can forget the claim he made that we would go bankrupt and be expelled from the Senate because an order for costs for the sum of $200,000 was made against him after a failed court case. He made a public plea and still collected moneys well after the amount required had been collected. He fraudulently raised moneys well beyond those he needed. He then used the surplus as a personal slush fund to hand out largess. He did not declare the moneys on time or in a proper manner to the Registrar of Senators' Interests.

Not deterred by that little escapade, he then went on to personally negotiate a $1.6 million donation to the Australian Greens. He personally negotiated it. Can you imagine the horror of the media in this country if either Ms Gillard or Mr Abbott were to have done the same? The media would be baying for blood, as they rightly should, saying that they had contaminated themselves. For some reason when Senator Bob Brown does it there is virtually no comment from the media, which he somehow describes as the hate media. He would have to be the most protected species in this country when it comes to this sort of disclosure, checking up and investigation. He brazenly sought a donation of $1.6 million, bragged about the fact that he had done so and then, having achieved it, said he would be 'forever grateful'. The person who gave him the donation said it was 'probably a good return on investment.'

This donor has embarked on a venture to purchase real estate for $6 million below the market value. Senator Brown has injected himself into those negotiations against the competitor to his donor. That is on the record. He has asked questions about it in the Senate. He has spoken about it publicly. He in fact has asked for government support for the company that was willing to sell this real estate below market price to the donor of $1.6 million. This very same donor has now embarked on a venture in the media which is not tax deductible. It is going to cost his multimillionaire friend millions of dollars to embark on this venture. So what does Senator Brown suggest all of a sudden? That this venture should become tax deductible. Surprise, Surprise! His donor would get as a minimum, one assumes, a handy $1 million tax deduction from this so-called investment—talk about a good return on investment, to quote the donor. You get real estate for $6 million less than the market value and you might get a $1 million tax refund. That is a $7 million return on an investment of $1.6 million. This is taking bob-a-job too far. This is in fact two jobs for $1.6 million.

It is passing strange, with this tawdry history of the Leader of the Australian Greens, that one of the things that the Australian Greens have campaigned on for a very long time is an integrity commissioner for the federal parliament. I wonder where that proposal has gone. It seems to have died a death. Senator Brown and the Greens are no longer talking about an integrity commissioner. I know what would happen if we already had one. The very first item of business would be for the integrity commissioner to investigate Senator Brown's involvement in the business affairs and former business affairs of this donor.