Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We saw a new side of Senator Brandis, who has magically discovered the benefits of reticence. He is all of a sudden—a man who generally you cannot shut up—talking very little. One can surmise why that is. You need only look at some of the commentary about what Minister Bishop has had to promise and implement with respect to Senator Brandis's injudicious comments in Senate estimates.

On the ABC website this morning I was interested to read some character assessments of Senator Brandis from his own colleagues. They covered a range of areas, including: 'I think Senator Brandis would not know a live animal if he fell over one,' and various other things. One can surmise where that came from. But the most interesting character description was one of his own Liberal colleagues describing him to the ABC this morning as 'intellectually arrogant'. I do not fully agree with that character assessment. 'Arrogant'—true; that goes without saying. But 'intellectual'? I do not really think so. Senator Brandis might have installed a $15,000 taxpayer funded wall-to-ceiling bookcase in his office—complete with stepladder—not once but twice, but that does not make him an intellectual. He is meant to be the first law officer of the land, not an assistant law librarian.

Would a true intellectual defend the Racial Discrimination Act amendments that he was putting forward by arguing:

People do have a right to be bigots, you know.

Is that the response of a true intellectual? Would a true intellectual take his riding orders on the Racial Discrimination Act from a single newspaper columnist and ignore every community organisation in the land? Would a true intellectual rush so ignorantly into foreign policy by claiming that no Australian government has ever accepted the term 'occupied' in relation to Palestinian territories? Senator Brandis's last blunder has triggered a rolling foreign policy fiasco for the government and has damaged Australia's interests. This is not the act of an intellectual. It is the act of someone who is reckless and arrogant.

Senator Brandis is meant to be the first law officer of the land, not a freelance foreign minister. So it is no wonder that the actual Minister for Foreign Affairs has instructed the Attorney-General to stick to his day job. The position of Attorney-General is an important one in our system of government. It is a position which requires integrity, intelligence and sound judgement. It is not a position for someone who acts like he is in student politics. It is not a position for someone who has been described as a bull who brings his own china shop. It is certainly not a position for someone who displays the arrogance and poor judgment— (Time expired)