Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution this debate. It seems not so long ago that the Attorney-General made a very comprehensive statement in this place, and it was obviously as a result of some very careful consideration over the weekend. When this story came out, I think, on Friday—it certainly came to my attention on Friday—I thought, 'Well, I'm not a lawyer.' That is pretty obvious to most people in this place. I mean, I barely finished high school. But through my working life I did go through a couple of instances where I had to deal with liquidation and the like. In all of those cases it was exceedingly clear that the tax office was the first secured line of credit, then the secured creditors and then the employees. It seemed, to me, like an immovable, immutable law that when someone owed some money the first people who would get paid would be the Commonwealth of Australia, which is all of us. The taxation department would take the first bite of any assets that were left.

Senator Back has given us a great history lesson about some of the shortcomings in Western Australia some 25 years ago, but I do agree with Senator McKim that I am not sure that that is all that relevant to this debate here today. What is relevant to the debate here today is, firstly, how the Attorney-General keeps getting in this position. How does he keep getting front and centre in all manner of arguments? I listed all the attorneys-general since 1972, and there have been some colourful attorneys-general in those 44 years. None of them had the capacity that this Attorney-General has to get right in the middle and be obvious to everybody that he is furiously trying to avoid what has basically hit him in the face. He cannot avoid the fact that his very complex and complete statement avoids the obvious. Why didn't he, as the Attorney-General—the representative of all the people in Australia—step up and say, 'That's rubbish'? It is simple rubbish. You cannot put in legislation which would move the secured creditor, the ATO—the Commonwealth of Australia—down the list.

I think there have been some moves between Western Australia and the federal parliament. Remember they said the grown-ups were in charge—Joe Hockey and the grown-ups were in charge. Senator Cormann was right there with them with a big cigar and a big glass of wine at the 2014 budget. They played the tune 'The Best Day of Our Lives'. In all that bonhomie and goodwill that they had, did they cook up a deal? Did they cook up a deal to fix what had been a pressing domestic issue for the Western Australian federal members of parliament where their own side was saying that they were weak and that they were not advocating for Western Australia in the federal parliament and they were not doing enough to regain funds which Western Australia claimed it had lost under the horizontal fiscal equalisation and in other areas? They were getting internal criticism. Did they actually go across the border and do a deal?

We know that the Hon. Christian Porter, former WA Treasurer and former WA Attorney-General, would have been well placed to argue the case. Senator Brandis basically came out and said that it was all to do with Joe Hockey and that he was not party to a number of things. According to Brandis, the whole Bell litigation mess was the fault of Joe Hockey; the Western Australia Treasurer, Mike Nahan; the Western Australian Attorney-General, Michael Mischin; the Hon. Christian Porter; and the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer. Remarkably, the Hon. George Brandis somehow escaped any blame at all—he was just the poor innocent Attorney-General who it all happened around. Apparently it all happened around him and nothing went through his office. Senator Dodson talked about Chinese walls. Apparently the Attorney-General's staff did not talk to him for two months and, if it was happening, he was not made aware of it.

These things are simply not good enough. The question that Senator Brandis needs to answer is: if he had no objections to the ATO office intervening in the case, why was their submission not made until the last possible day? If Senator Brandis says advising the ATO not to intervene in the case was an option he was considering, how long did he hold that view? What advice did Solicitor General Justin Gleeson give to Senator Brandis on the ATO intervening? Did Senator Brandis contest this advice? Why didn't Senator Brandis seek to correct the view of Western Australian ministers that they had a deal? I am not a lawyer—far from it. I am not the Attorney-General—far from it. I am not a QC—far from it. But I could have told them their deal would not last two minutes, because whenever there is liquidation the Australian Commonwealth through the ATO has the first chop at any liquidated proceeds. Attempting to pass some legislation in the state simply would not succeed unless there was a deal to say nothing, do nothing and hope that the Solicitor-General was a compliant person who would let this all go through to the keeper and no-one would know. But, as is always the case, as soon the deal was struck, other creditors immediately appealed to the High Court. So then the Attorney-General was in the box. He was the one who had to either stay shtum and hope the deal passed some way or other or just leave it to the court to rule it out and say, 'It's rubbish. It should never have been promulgated.'

When you think about it why is Western Australia so important? I do not count numbers in the Liberal Party. I have no idea of those. But I have heard people who are not members of the Labor Party say this. Whoever leads the Liberal Party cannot do so without the support of New South Wales and Western Australia.

Was there a deal? Was there a deal cooked up between two groups of people about achieving an outcome, where the Western Australian contingent were under increasing pressure from their own side? I think that Senator Smith did get up and advocate for a better deal for Western Australia. Not everybody in cabinet could do that though. But did Senator Cormann say, 'Don't you worry about that; I pull the strings in Western Australia. I will fix this'?

And maybe Senator Brandis is right: maybe there were Chinese Walls built around his office and his particular activities in this. He certainly has been very careful to try to demonstrate that he knew nothing about this dodgy deal, which basically looks like a politically expedient arrangement which probably carried through two prime ministers. It was probably done in the Abbott years and passed through to Mr Turnbull. And the one common denominator is Senator Cormann.

Senator Cormann has this amazing capacity to be part of every disaster—the 2014 budget; the cigar and the glass of wine; and the tune played—'Best Day of My Life'. He gets through that and still remains intact. Where is the Hon. Joe Hockey? He has been put out to pasture—very good pasture, in Washington. But that is where he is now; his career is finished. But Senator Cormann is still there, and he has this capacity to move through all of these disasters unscathed.

You can look at some of the things that come out of the Department of Finance which are not really contested in a lot of areas. We had his secretary, Jane Halton, come to the Public Works Committee and apologise because they omitted costings in a huge proposal. It does not stick on Senator Cormann. He is Mr Teflon over there, and you have to wonder why that is. Is it because he wields such incredible factional power?

The Liberal Party and the coalition are always on about factions in the Labor Party, and how there are factions about this and factions about that. Well, they are alive and well in Western Australia. They appear to have been on their way to doing a very good deal for Western Australia, to the detriment of the Australian Commonwealth and with the blind acquiescence of the Attorney-General—or he was too dumb to know what was going on. But the central player in it all, Senator Cormann, is not getting the opprobrium that he should get in this. I believe that he was misusing his position to the advantage of Western Australia.

You could argue that he is a senator for Western Australia and that he can do whatever he likes. But he should realise that the Commonwealth is the first creditor in liquidation, and that the ATO and the Australian people are entitled to get the first bite of any proceeds. To do anything other than that is pure stupidity and a misuse of his factional power.