Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday, the privileges committee did hand down a report that found that there was improper interference in the functions of this parliament, and there is no way that anyone in this chamber can get around those conclusions, which ought to raise very serious concerns for senators in this place and, indeed, for members in the other place. It is worth observing also that the report that was handed down yesterday was adopted in this chamber without opposition and that it makes a series of very acute observations about the issues that arise in relation to the raids that took place during the last election campaign.

Let us recall the gravity of that decision to execute a search warrant during an election period. What we saw was that, at the direction and request of a wholly-owned government business enterprise, a search was undertaken to seize documents from a sitting parliamentarian—from a senator, Senator Conroy, who had been tenacious and assiduous in chasing down the absolutely grotesque failures associated with the NBN project in the period since Mr Turnbull, the Prime Minister, assumed responsibility for that project.

Before I move on to considering the nature of those failures, I want to put on record again, because it appears to be difficult for senators on the other side of the chamber to understand this, that we have no criticism of the AFP. We make no criticism of the AFP because, as is observed in the report that was adopted here yesterday, the officers who executed that warrant did so in good faith and in the belief that they were pursuing a legitimate complaint. My concern is about the nature of the complaint and the reason that that complaint was brought forward, because it is hard not to observe the correlation between the grotesque failures and enormous shortcomings in the NBN project in the period since Mr Turnbull had responsibility for it and the desire to uncover whistleblowers who had blown the whistle on these shortcomings. What has happened since Mr Turnbull took over this project? He promised a great deal about providing an NBN that would be cheaper and more effective than the one—