Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Settle down, fellas. As I said to these colleagues last night: kick your shoes off, rest back and have a listen up. I have not been here for a long time, but in the time that I have been here I have seen, on occasions, an abuse of the parliamentary privilege that underpins our ability to get on with the job. But I have never seen such an atrocious abuse as I have just witnessed from Senator Conroy. I have never seen such an attack—in this case on a senior retired jurist of this nation, one of the most respected legal jurists in the country. I do not intend to waste one more second of this chamber's time in relation to the facts that led up to it, because they are well and truly clear. Through question time today and yesterday we have heard from our colleagues across the chamber, including the Greens. Have they got any interest in job creation in this nation? No. About education reform? None whatsoever. Or about disability services? They were chatting and giggling away over there today as they prepared to ask questions on this.

In the short time that I have to make a contribution, we need to ask ourselves: why would they want to attack this royal commission? Why would they want to attack this eminent jurist? I will tell you why: it is because over the last three or four days they have been exposed and their connections, both the Greens and the Labor Party, with their criminal activity—sorry, I withdraw that—with their association with people who are engaged in criminal activity that leads to benefits for those organisations, who then go ahead and nourish the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens with phenomenal sums of money. You are paid players, paid to be in this place to represent their interests and to defend them against these very, very serious allegations as exposed by this royal commission.

A fact I pointed out last night was that, in all the hundreds of hours in recent debates and in debates before, not once—with one exception, which I will come to—has anyone from that side ever mentioned transparency, accountability, holding people to account, or the abuse of power and positions? Only once, and that was a contribution made by Senator Ludwig last night when he referred to this royal commission as a 'stalking horse.' This is a pearl. Pick up your pens and make a note of it so you never, ever make the mistake of using it yourself. He said they were using this royal commission as a stalking horse to pursue transparency and accountability. Have a listen to that! As I said in my contribution last night: some days you people must not be able to think as the galloping hooves of this royal commission come up behind you.

We have exposed some of the most entrenched modern criminality and criminal behaviour in this country impacting on the productivity of this nation to the tune of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions—I suspect possibly billions. And, I said here, the people who are doing this, who have been exposed by the royal commission, are being protected by the Australian Labor Party—the same crowd that stands up at every opportunity to tell us that they are here for the workers of Australia. I have got to tell you that you do a good job of protecting the unions. You have done a terrific job standing up and battling on their behalf, but nothing you have done will make a positive contribution to the development and maintenance of jobs in this country, to the growth and development in the construction industry, to the issues of transparency and accountability. You need to look them up. I have an Oxford dictionary in my office—I will drop it around if you need it. Accountability—

Honourable senators interjecting—

No, no. You think it is a joke, Senator Sam. In between your filming liabilities as a cameo, all you want to do is laugh when your pathetic performance in protecting these criminal organisations is raised. And it is a massive abuse of parliamentary privilege. I thank you for the opportunity to make the contribution.