Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to say 'ambulance chaser', Senator Brandis. He was an adviser to the Bligh government, which just shows what little regard the previous speaker had. But I do not want to enter into personalities. The things he throws at me just roll off my back.

What is humorous about this debate is that it has two origins that I think are important for the Senate to understand. Senator Brandis has been through it in a very detailed fashion—a fashion that was uncontested in all of the silly questions that were asked by the Labor Party at question time. The genesis of this attack on Senator Brandis comes from back in the days of the crook—the Labor Party criminal, the Labor Party Premier of Western Australia, a criminal who ended up in jail—who oversaw the Bond WA Inc. disaster. There are four senators in this chamber from Western Australia from the Labor side, and not one of them was prepared to ask a question or speak on this debate. By contrast, two of the Liberal senators from Western Australia have participated. I think the Labor Party senators do not want to be reminded of the crook, the Labor Party Premier of Western Australia, who ended up in jail. He was a bit like Gordon Nuttall, the Labor Party minister from Queensland—no doubt known to the previous speaker in his time as an adviser to the Bligh government—who ended up in jail for bribery. He is still there, as far as I know. He is in jail in Queensland with two or three other Labor Party luminaries serving sentences. That is one of the things. Western Australian Labor senators do not want to raise it, because it draws attention to the criminal Mr Burke, the Labor Party Premier who ruled in Western Australia in conjunction with Mr Bond all of those years ago.

This wet lettuce leaf attack on Senator Brandis that the Labor Party is fixated about all comes about by this inquiry into the Solicitor-General, Mr Gleeson, which the Labor Party and Greens set up with the pure intention of getting rid of Senator Brandis. That was never going to happen. What happened? How did it end up? The Labor Party and Greens initiated this inquiry and as a result of it they oversaw the resignation of the Solicitor-General, the man that Mr Dreyfus, the Labor Party Attorney-General, in the dying days of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government appointed as the Solicitor-General. We know from the evidence at the inquiry that the Solicitor-General was speaking with Labor Party politicians during the caretaker period and not reporting that, as he is required to. We wonder about that. Labor had an attack on the Attorney-General but they succeeded in destroying the career of their mate the Solicitor-General.

The Labor Party continue the same problem. They have confected this issue over the Bell case. The Attorney-General in a very clear and detailed statement explained that fully, clearly and without any serious question by the Labor Party this afternoon or at question time. I say to the Labor Party: forget your fixation on the Attorney-General. He is going to be here for a long period of time. I know you do not like him, because he is so good—he handles questions so well and he leads the government in the Senate so well—but give it up because every time you confect these problems you end up killing your own people. Take the lesson from that and remember Western Australia Inc. (Time expired)