Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to indicate a view that I perhaps can hold more than anyone else, because I have been in this parliament more than anyone else. I just say that Senator Brandis is probably the best Attorney-General I have ever experienced in this chamber. Senator Brandis is a longstanding colleague of mine—not a particular friend, I might say, but a longstanding colleague. I have known him over a long period of time. His knowledge of the law is impeccable. His attention to precision and detail is without peer in this chamber and in any Attorney that I have seen here in the 27 years I have been here. I have seen a few, and there have been some good ones—none of the Labor ones, I might say, but there have been some very good attorneys-general from the coalition. Senator Brandis is as good as, if not better than, all of them.

I wonder why these farcical inquiries keep being held by the Labor Party and the Greens. That is all they are. They are not Senate inquiries; they are simply Labor Party and Greens inquiries. I keep wondering why they do it. It is pretty obvious that if you want to attack someone, if you want to bring someone down, you do not do that to the worst-performing minister in the parliament; you do it to the best, the one that causes you most trouble, the one that has an accurate answer to every allegation levelled against the government in his role both as Leader of the Government in the Senate and as Attorney-General.

When you keep trying and can never ever get a kink in the armour, it sets the Labor Party and the Greens up further. They keep holding these Labor Party and Greens inquiries—not, I emphasise, Senate inquiries, because more often than not these inquiries set up by the Labor Party and the Greens are held at times when they know government senators will not be available. So they are not Senate reports—they are not Senate inquiries—they are simply reports and inquiries of the Labor Party and the Greens, who keep—