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

What an utterly duplicitous piece of government spin written by the Prime Minister's office to defend the indefensible in this matter. It continues the behaviour of the Prime Minister and senior government ministers in protecting one of their own, because the demise of one of their own would mean the potential demise of this illegitimate government.

I will go through a number of matters again today, and then I will finish on what I think is another extremely serious allegation about this government's behaviour. I think it has been in the press that this inquiry started in April 2009. Today I looked at the evidence of Mr Nassios.

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

The parliamentary secretary herself does not know, because she said 'March'. Indeed, back on 10 February last year, Mr Nassios, the investigator, admitted that this inquiry started in January 2009. What honourable senators may not be aware of is that there was a pre-inquiry inquiry which went for nearly 15 months—there were nearly 15 months of a preliminary inquiry before they moved to the formal investigation. That is an outrageous time delay. The explanation by Mr Nassios was straight out of an episode of Yes, Minister. It said:

The Fair Work Act is structured in a way that requires me as a delegate to inquire as to whether there are reasonable grounds for me to actually proceed to an investigation. I am actually not at the moment investigating, and it may be that there will be no investigation. I am inquiring.

It was 19 months. To Mr Nassios I said:

Mr Nassios, you have now had this matter for 13 months and you are telling us you still actually have not decided, so it is an investigation into whether you are doing to investigate the matter. Is that what you are telling committee?

This is absolutely outrageous. There were 15 months of a pre-investigation inquiry, and two years later it has not been finalised. But what is open to the Australian community and what is open to everyone involved in this matter is to see what some of those involved have said about this inquiry.

My colleague Senator Abetz quite rightly quoted some comments from Mr Doug Williams, the former industrial registrar, who started this investigation and wrote a memo that the government refused to release just prior to his departure—which happened the end of June 2009, according to my recollection. They refused to release that memo. Mr Williams criticised Fair Work Australia for its unaccountably protracted investigations into the allegation of the use of Thomson's HSU cards. Mr Williams warned that Fair Work Australia's reputation could suffer because the investigation of the HSU and Thomson was taking too long. It was 'unaccountably protracted', according to the man who commenced this investigation back in early 2009. Let us consider the comments of Kathy Jackson. The behaviour of some in the Labor Party towards this woman has been an utter disgrace. When did the last Labor woman stand up and say, 'We do not think it is acceptable behaviour for a woman from the union to have a shovel shoved on her front door step in the middle of the night'? The utter cowardice of those opposite on the question of the defence of this woman is extraordinary. The Australiannewspaper reported recently that Kathy Jackson said:

… that while she had no direct evidence, she suspected there had been government interference in the Fair Work Australia investigation into the HSU. "I suspect it because of what I am hearing around town. Just watch this space," …

What was she suspecting? What did she allege? She alleged that there was government involvement with the Fair Work Australia investigation into the the HSU and Craig Thomson.

Kathy Jackson went on to say that she told Doug Williams when he was the industrial registrar of the AIRC that there might be political interference in the inquiry. It is alleged that Mr Williams said:

I know that the allegations against Craig Thomson can bring down the government and that there are powerful people in the ALP who might make an attempt to nobble the investigation from the inside after I leave …

When talking about nobbling, you need go no further than the behaviour of the former minister who is in the chair at the moment and is indeed the acting general manager.

Mr Nassios has control of this investi­gation. Mr Nassios was quite happy, in the early part of last year and the later part of the year before, to answer matters that were not going to interfere with his inquiry. He was quite circumspect about this, but he was prepared to at least answer questions. As soon there was a change over to the acting general manager, the acting general manager refused to allow Nassios to answer a single question. She nobbled him. What I want to know, what this parliament wants to know and what the Australian people want to know is: on whose direction was Nassios nobbled? Who in the government spoke to the acting general manager and demanded of her that she nobble Mr Nassios? That is the question that is outstanding.

There is one further question which I raise now in the limited time left to me. Back in October, I said to the acting general manager, 'Are you going to release publically the findings of Mr Nassios, as it was referred to you, and the public information surround­ing it?' At that stage, the acting general manager refused to answer the question and took it on notice. We now know from AAP reports on 3 February that the final report on Craig Thomson may not be publically released—what an absolute outrage.

I will go through some of the things that I think should be immediately released. We believe that the sworn statements which were taken from Mr Thomson and others should be released, because we want to see what Mr Thomson said on oath about Fair Work Australia and what he said in his statement about the defamation proceedings he took against Fairfax, which he dropped in the most cowardly of fashions. We want to compare the evidence he gave in the Fairfax matter to the evidence he gave to Fair Work Australia. We want to see the BDO Kendall report which the government and Fair Work Australia refuses to release. We want to see all the information from the Fairfax defamation proceedings so we can again compare what was said in that civil case with what was said to Fair Work Australia.

This Prime Minister can run from this matter, but she can no longer hide. It goes to the core of this government's integrity. It goes to the core of this government's claim about openness and transparency. It has taken fourteen months for an inquiry to decide whether there would be a further inquiry and an investigation. This investi­gation has taken over two years. We were told in the middle of last year that the investigation would be finalised by the end of 2011. We were then told it would be finalised by the middle of January 2012. We are now told it will not be finalised until March this year.

This government must own up to the fact that this inquiry has taken far too long. This government has to own up to the fact that it has nobbled a senior member of Fair Work Australia for its own cheap political purposes. There is not one person in this country who does not believe that the government is actively involved in ensuring that Craig Thomson remains the member for Dobell for as long as possible in order to prevent what would otherwise be inevitable. This Prime Minister tried to cover up for what may potentially be the forced retire­ment of Mr Thomson by going to Mr Slipper and getting him to cross sides. It shows just how desperate this government is. You must immediately acknowledge that every single document must be released to the Australian community and that it must be done now.