Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will do that. I am in a unique position to pass judgement on Commissioner Heydon's secret reports and findings. Unlike most Australians and politicians, I have read Commissioner Heydon's secret reports. They were fiction; they were a lie. There were no grave threats to the Australian state. If there was, ASIO would have been all over the Heydon royal commission like a rash. When I questioned ASIO at estimates about Heydon's secret reports, no copy had been referred to them, nor had ASIO even thought of asking for a copy. A royal commissioner who agreed to participate in a Liberal Party fundraiser lied to the Australian parliament and the Australian people about the seriousness of the threat to the Australian state through his investigations into union and other corruption. And this is a debate when the question 'Why?' must be asked.

According to Parliamentary Library research that I recently commissioned, the four big banks—CBA, NAB, Westpac and ANZ—over a five-year period from 2010-11 to the present day have donated $2.56 million to the Liberals, Nationals and LNP. That is why you will not see a banker lose their right to silence to prove their innocence if they are accused of an offence or crime in the finance industry. But, if this legislation passes, you will see a blue-collar worker lose their right to silence and the right of a presumption of innocence, while bankers are treated separately. Indeed, this law is so bad that citizens accused of murder and rape will have more rights than a construction worker if summoned under the ABCC legislation.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948 states in article 7:

All are equal before the law and are entitled … to equal protection of the law.

My question to you is: as it stands written, we are not sure if the imprisonment for six months for exercising a right to silence is the mandatory minimum or maximum period of time. (Time expired)

Question negatived.