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

You always know when Senator McKim is on the ropes, because the volume of the rhetoric gets dialled up and the personal abuse of other senators and the questioning of their motives becomes more and more ugly. Nevertheless, Senator McKim, leaving aside all the personal abuse, venom and vituperation that has fallen from your lips in the last 15 minutes, has it not dawned on you that you have just made an extremely strong case for the government's procedural amendments? To use your words, if it be the case that Mr Leak had a 'clear and unambiguous 18D defence', that it was 'blindingly obvious' that he had a section 18D defence and that Professor Gillian Triggs, the president, was 'virtually begging him to make a submission relying on an 18D defence', which 'would have undoubtedly succeeded', then that is the strongest argument you could possibly make for why there should be, as the government amendments propose, an early termination power vested in the president so that the president does not have to await a joinder of issue between a complainant and a respondent where palpably the respondent's position is meritorious and undoubtedly the respondent's position would be vindicated were the issue to be joined between the complainant and the respondent. If that is the case, as Professor Triggs herself has asked for, there should be an early termination proceeding rather than requiring there to be a joinder of issue between the parties. So in view of the argument you have just made, Senator McKim, no doubt you will be voting for the government's amendments on schedule 2.