Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) and the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Senators Conroy and Cameron today relating to the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

As senators would be aware, today's article in The Australian by Pamela Williams contains explosive revelations about the Abbott government's politically motivated trade union royal commission. We already knew that the Prime Minister's hand-picked royal commissioner, Dyson Heydon, had inexplicably agreed to speak at a Liberal Party function. In recent weeks, we have also come to learn that Dyson Heydon and Counsel Assisting Jeremy Stoljar failed to disclose that they were tipped off about the forthcoming media storm. And, most recently, we have seen the unedifying spectacle of Dyson Heydon finding himself, surprisingly, clear of potential bias.

If all of that were not enough to prove what Labor has been saying all along—that this royal commission is nothing more than a politically motivated witch-hunt set up by the Prime Minister to smear his political opponents—today's explosive revelations can leave nobody in doubt about the political motivations behind this royal commission and the biased behaviour of the royal commissioner and his staff. Thanks to the investigative journalism of Pamela Williams, we have learned today from the royal commission's own file notes—the royal commission's own documents—that the royal commission staff helped—coached, no less—Ms Kathy Jackson. This is a smoking gun. It fatally compromises this outrageous politically-motivated royal commission.

Instead of investigating trade union corruption, the supposed basis for this royal commission, today we have learned that the royal commission was protecting a corrupt witness, Kathy Jackson, to cover up her thefts—was protecting a corrupt witness to protect her from disclosure of her own corrupt stealing, rather than fulfilling its supposed mandate—