Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to provide some input into this matter of public importance as well, and in my brief contribution just make two points here. Firstly, I think that the coalition wants to conveniently forget the facts surrounding Minister Roxon's involvement in the statements last week and the settlement with Mr Ashby. Senator Faulkner outlined a number of those but I think what we need to also add is that the Commonwealth in this matter was being sued and was in fact defending that complaint. It filed an application and had made submissions that the proceedings were vexatious and that there was an abuse of process. So the Commonwealth was actually involved in this matter.

It is not unusual that from time to time the Attorney-General would be seeking briefings about the Commonwealth's involvement in legal matters and cases. We have got the internationally famous tobacco litigation case and we have of course the chaplains case. There is also international whaling and the Malaysia agreement—the list goes on—where the Commonwealth is party to the action, and the Commonwealth and the minister involved, that is the Attorney-General, would receive briefings about that. That is her involvement. The Commonwealth was party to this matter before the court because they were being sued. The counterclaim was that we believed that it was an abuse of process.

There is one thing here that we sought to then do: to negotiate a settlement and resolve the area in which the Commonwealth was involved, and that is what was done. Already, as we know—and it is public knowledge—$750,000 in taxpayers' costs have been racked up in the pursuit of this matter and so at the end of the day and in the interests of a settlement, and the interests of the taxpayers' dollar, a settlement with Mr Ashby was made. That settlement, as agreed between the parties, was public. That settlement and the outcomes of the settlement have been made public and have been out there for the last week.

There is still another aspect of the matter that is ensuing between Mr Slipper and Mr Ashby and, as Senator Carr said today in question time, it is not a matter for debate in this chamber. It has never been a matter of debate before the parties because it is a matter before the court and therefore no further comment should be made about it.