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

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, you might ask him to sit quietly. I know that I am really on the money when I start to get the interjections, so the more you interject the louder I will get, but I will get my message through. We have two documents here that bear a relationship to each other. There is no challenge on the part of Mr Gleeson and, in fact, there is no challenge on the part of the Attorney-General that discussions took place. There was engagement between the Attorney's office and Mr Gleeson's office. There was engagement between the Attorney's office and his department. There was engagement between the department and Mr Gleeson. All that is out in evidence. I do not think anybody is disputing that. We have a guidance note that was developed in a discussion. There are minutes to show that the legal services direction had at least been in the conversation. You can challenge, if you will, the detail provided by whoever took the minutes on the day. We can have that discussion on another day. Statements have been made in this place that these things were discussed. At the end of the day, Mr Gleeson made input to one of the documents, where that input and other input is reflected in the second document. I have to tell you that I had a couple of hundred staff before I came into this place. If I had run my business the way we run this parliament, I would have been broke by Tuesday lunchtime—seriously. I would have known by Monday afternoon that I was going broke on Tuesday.

An opposition senator interjecting—

I will take that interjection reflecting on Mr Day. He would buy and sell 100 of you on any given day, and he is a much better man than most of you. So, coming back to the question— (Time expired)