Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a humiliating morning for the Attorney-General of Australia. This man is so determined to hide evidence from the Senate and Senate inquiries that he has to be hauled before the full Senate and be asked questions that he will not answer when put to him by a committee set up to inquire into this issue. I cannot remember the last time I saw a minister, whether in a state parliament or the federal parliament, having to be dragged before the full chamber in order to get them to stop hiding information that is reasonably sought by a committee. You can only wonder what Senator Brandis's colleagues must think of the amount of time that is being expended in defending his incompetence, his secrecy and his deception. This is a government that is struggling desperately to get clear air to do something positive for this country. We are told that we are going to sit into the night tonight to try to get legislation through which they say is necessary for the future of this country, but yet again Senator Brandis's incompetence and deception is causing the Senate to divert time to ask him very reasonable questions about his practice and that of his office.

This is yet another example of the lengths of deception that this Attorney-General is prepared to go to to prevent the truth getting out about his involvement in very serious matters under his portfolio. It was not that long ago that we had to establish a Senate inquiry into his behaviour in relation to the former Solicitor-General of Australia and we had very clear evidence from numerous senior officials in this government, from the Solicitor-General down, that the Attorney-General had clearly taken action against the Solicitor-General as retribution for the Solicitor-General's desire to maintain some level of independence around the advice that he had given. We have seen the Attorney-General deceive the Senate previously about his role with the Solicitor-General—