Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

What another pathetic performance from the Leader of the Government. This attempt to try to say that what Dyson Heydon did was not a political exercise is just nonsense. He has been hung out to dry by his own Prime Minister who said today:

… the royal commissioner himself believed that it was inappropriate to give the address at a Liberal Party fundraiser.

He said that because the commissioner issued that statement, which I quoted. The Prime Minister was clear on what it was and he went on to say that obviously the royal commissioner himself believed that it was wrong for people in his position to address party fundraisers.

The only reason this nonsense is going on in here is that it is clear that it was a fundraiser. What Senator Abetz failed to do was to show the invitation that went out and to show the party-political donation statement on the back of that invitation. It was clearly and unequivocally a party-political fundraiser. So all the nonsense and arguments that are going on here are simply that, nonsense and arguments, to try to justify the unjustifiable. This was not a public professional lecture; this was a party political fundraiser. It is there in black and white from the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party. More lies and more distortion in here will not take away from that fact.

Dyson Heydon has been exposed as being the star turn at a Liberal Party fundraiser. Again, it has exposed the real nature of this so-called royal commission which is nothing more than a witch-hunt. Dyson Heydon should do the right thing—he has not been doing the right thing for some time now—and he should resign. He is the PM's hand-picked royal commissioner in a political witch-hunt. He is no more than the political vassal of the Liberal Party. He was going off to pay political homage and allegiance to the Liberal Party legal elite. That is what he was about to do, and it was discovered. The only reason he did not do it is that it became a public issue and one of huge embarrassment. That is the only reason he did not do it.

This royal commission is no more than the modern day equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition. You target the heretics, you target your political opponents—and they are the ALP and the unions. You get a biased judge in Justice Heydon, you get an outcome that is inevitable and you set about debasing the concept of a royal commission and you debase the role of a royal commissioner.

Dyson Heydon is unfit for any role that requires independence and impartiality. Dyson Heydon, a self-stated devout conservative, chose to preside over a witch-hunt against Labor leaders and the trade union movement. This commission was never going to be fair, it was always going to be biased. It was prejudiced towards Liberal policies and against the trade union movement. It was prejudiced against the Labor Party, and Heydon presided over a distortion and an abuse of royal commission processes. He is not fit to be in the position he is in. This is a perversion of royal commission processes. It is clearly set up as a political tool to attack the trade union movement and the Labor Party. So-called Justice Heydon is improperly exercising his powers as a royal commissioner in the interests of the Liberal Party. Neither this government nor Dyson Heydon can be trusted. The arrogance of the coalition in trying to deny that it was a political fundraiser, and the arrogance of Justice Dyson to say that he would not talk about it, means that this man has to go. He has no credibility. (Time expired)