George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The innuendo from Senator Cameron against Mr Brough is that Mr Brough has been guilty of wrongdoing. In fact, at the very end of his contribution Senator Cameron actually explicitly said that. He actually explicitly said that for some unspecified reason Mr Brough should resign from the ministry. That is plainly an allegation of wrongdoing. What I want to do is expose the paucity of Senator Cameron's allegations against Mr Brough, because all Senator Cameron was able to do—although he did not identify it until pressed—was to quote from a search warrant. It is, as Senator Cameron acknowledges, a matter of public record that Mr Brough, and other individuals as well, were the respondents to search warrants executed by the police in investigating what has been called 'the James Ashby affair'.

Let me put this as simply as I can. For a person to be the subject of a search warrant by the police is absolutely no indication of wrongdoing. None whatsoever. The bases upon which the police may apply for a search warrant are well known. They are, to use layman's language, circumstances which might assist the police in identifying material or a document which may assist an investigation. If the police believe or reasonably suspect that there is such material located at a particular premise, they may seek a search warrant and execute the warrant at that premise. It does not for a second, not for a moment, suggest that the occupier of that premise is guilty of the crime or the offence or the wrongdoing which is the subject of the investigation, merely because a search warrant is executed upon their premises. What Senator Cameron did first by innuendo and ultimately by explicit assertion was to submit in the debate that we should conclude from the fact that a search warrant was executed at premises of which Mr Brough and his family are the occupants that Mr Brough is somehow guilty of wrongdoing. That does not follow. That does not follow, and I am sure Senator Ludwig, who is a member of the Queensland bar, if he contributes to this debate—