Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, on 8 February a letter was received by the chair of the Privileges Committee, which gave the legal advice supporting the call made in December asking for Senator Brandis to recuse himself. Subsequent to that, Senator Brandis, on 9 February, did recuse himself. That legal advice had been received by the chair and I note we are still hearing from Senator Macdonald about substantive matters which were proved to be false and he is continuing to prosecute falsities in this Senate.

The facts of the matter are: a request for recusal on 22 December 2011; legal advice on 8 February 2012; Senator Brandis recused himself on 9 February 2012. It is pretty obvious and the real question here is: why weren't matters dealt with in a timely manner and why weren't they circulated to all members of the committee as requested?