Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the censure motion today. I also would like to address the issues that Senator Collins raises in what she calls the erroneous and misleading testimony. I will go through this in detail. As a member of the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committees I very carefully went through the testimony from last week. There were no less than seven separate reasons given by the Human Rights Commission president on why the inquiry was called and four different answers about when it was called. That included five new reasons why Operation Sovereign Borders was, was not, was, was not and then was the reason and also about the supposed lack of information coming from the department of immigration. I will be going through all of those very carefully in terms of the facts, but I want to pick up a point from Senator Moore. I totally agree with what Senator Moore said at the end of her speech—that no-one still knows exactly why this inquiry was called. I think inadvertently she has absolutely hit the nail on the head in this debate.

I would like to share with my colleagues here in the Senate my thoughts on this issue. First of all, as a member of the legal and constitutional affairs committees I was not here for the November hearings because I was in the Solomon Islands observing the election. I came back and reviewed why the government had lost faith in the Human Rights Commission president and started to look at the contradictory testimony. Through the course of that I read the report when it was released. I also had a very close look at the president's involvement in the protest group on this very issue. Right from the beginning I was a little perplexed at how an independent commissioner could also be a member of a very prominent protest group and saying things, 'Prison wire and terrified kids, where better than this?'