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

I am not in the business of that. The colleague is not in the Senate any longer. I participated in an examination of the Solicitor-General. I have been, along with Senator Macdonald, the subject of some public commentary in relation to our examination. I do not speak for Senator Macdonald; I speak purely for myself. My examination of Mr Gleeson was initially directed at trying to clear up this perception that he had become politically active in the question that was before the Senate. As time went on, the evidence revealed that Mr Gleeson had engaged in behaviour that prima facie was very political.

You will not agree with me, Senator Pratt. You did not agree with me on the day, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. As an officer of the Crown, the second law officer, it has been forgotten by many of you, works and has a responsibility in the relationship with the first law officer. It does not matter who is in government—whether it is the Labor Party, the coalition or, as anticipated in about 300 years time, a Greens government—that government has to have the confidence in its officers and within their relationships that those officers are not engaging in political activity.

I cannot in good conscience separate the behaviour of Professor Triggs, over a long period of time, and Mr Gleeson. Neither of these people, I suspect, can take the defence that they did not understand what they were doing. I suspect they are very intelligent. They are very well educated people. They do not have the defence that, as my old boss in the police used to say, 'It's not that he didn't know. It's that he didn't know he didn't know, is his defence.' In this case neither of these very senior legal professionals are able to take the case.

When the government was in caretaker mode it is politically an acutely sensitive time—it is the time everyone is shopping to get an edge. For both of these very senior officers of the Crown to have conversations with the opposition and the shadow Attorney—anybody who did not realise that that had a certain political volatility about it simply is not thinking. Even if in having done that their silence in not advising—in this case the second law officer advising the first law officer that he had engaged in a conversation with the shadow Attorney-General on a matter of great volatility—is deliberate concealment on his part in this case.