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

I rise to make a contribution to this debate with respect to the report on the consultations prior to the making of directions concerning opinions of the Solicitor-General. Firstly let me start perhaps on an area to which I had not necessarily intended to devote much time. I too have an interest in these claims of public interest immunity. It may be of interest to the previous speaker that I had a situation where Professor Triggs made not one, not two but three claims of public interest immunity to a line of questioning. It was a pure estimates matter. We were showing interest in how she and her commission had spent our money. We were investigating what, to the rest of the world, seemed prima facie to be quite frivolous matters.

It may be of interest to you that I was unable to secure the support of one of your colleagues in the committee meeting to challenge the claim that had been made by the good professor. It did not matter. We had some very sound legal advice. In fact, our colleagues from the Labor Party were contemplating supporting a rejection of the public interest immunity claim that had been made, in the interests of transparency and providing the information to the committee that it required, but your colleague was the one who resisted, very energetically, against having the public interest immunity claim determined as having not been valid.