Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis breaks the rules, but you have pulled him up quite properly, Deputy President. This fatuous claim by Senator Brandis that it took me to draw his attention to his own tirade against Senator Milne and me—quite false—in the Senate last July, and that we had to draw his attention to his own behaviour in this place before he got off that committee because he had no legal right to be there, is a pointer to what disregard this senator, this SC, holds for the law of this country. He should know the High Court rulings. But for 2½ months he ignored them and, flouting legal practice in this country, kept himself on that committee, having judged Senator Milne and I—falsely, as we now know from the Committee of Privileges—to be guilty of behaviour that never occurred. What a remarkable failure of this legally trained member of the coalition to do the right thing by the law.

There is no doubt he knew that the submission from Mr Ron Merkel QC tore to shreds his right to be on that committee, and he got off it for that reason. He says here he did not know about Senator Brown's complaint or Senator Milne's complaint. He ought to have known because he was the one who misbehaved in the Senate in July last year when he made accusations, falsely, against Senator Milne and I. And let me tell you this, Mr Deputy President: had we not got that legal advice he would have stayed there and we would now be facing an open hearing before the Committee of Privileges. Yet Senator Abetz has the hide to say on radio in Tasmania this morning that this is a 'legal folly'—in other words, he was not serious about this matter, he says, that put two senators before the Committee of Privileges. What a disgrace to the legal profession he is, that he should say such a thing or that he should abuse the Committee of Privileges in this way. What a performance from these two legally trained members of the Senate. They should be ashamed of themselves. (Time expired)