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

Senator, once again you misquote the evidence, as you did throughout the Labor Party written majority report, because it is not uniformly the case that eminent legal experts say that. In fact, as a matter of fact, Senator Pratt, one of the witnesses speaking on the proper interpretation of the meaning of 'consult' in section 17 of the Legislative Instruments Act, said that the extent of the obligation to consult is plainly entirely a matter for the lawmaker, and that evidence was uncontradicted. Yet you did not even refer to that in your report, and yet it went to the central issue of the case. And your report itself is self-contradictory, because what you find is not that there was no consultation but, to quote your words, 'There was no substantive consultation.' You are at liberty to form the view that there ought to have been more, but the extent of consultation required under the act, as the expert evidence showed, is entirely a matter for me.