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

That is not what your LNP colleagues in Queensland say, but we will wait and see what happens there.

I will move on to the substance of this report. As Senator Pratt has already outlined, the origins of this inquiry were some very concerning reports about a deal that was clearly done between the Commonwealth government and their Western Australian counterparts when former Treasurer Joe Hockey was still in that chair. It was very clear from the evidence that was revealed at this inquiry that a deal was done which would have put the Commonwealth taxpayer, the hardworking men and women of Australia, below a range of other creditors, including the WA government, in the distribution of proceeds from the long-running Bell litigation. Letters were provided to the inquiry. They were letters between former Treasurer Hockey and his Western Australia counterpart which clearly demonstrated the existence of a deal which would have ripped off the Commonwealth taxpayer by several hundred million dollars. Again, further evidence was provided in the form of Hansard transcripts from the Western Australian parliament which showed that the Western Australian government had a very clear understanding that they had a deal with the federal government.

The reason this is so serious is that the Commonwealth taxpayer obviously would normally take a very high position in the distribution of any proceeds from a liquidation and would quite rightly get their money back. The highly questionable nature of the deal that was struck between the two Liberal governments was reflected in the submissions from the Solicitor-General when he was eventually given permission to intervene on behalf of the federal government in the High Court litigation where the Solicitor-General made very clear that anyone who was behind the Western Australian legislation which sought to elevate themselves above the Commonwealth taxpayer either knew nothing about tax law at all or had—I think this was the phrase—blithe disregard for it.

This was a shady deal. We will never know exactly why it was done. Those of us in other states suspect that it was probably to settle the long-running argument between the federal government and Western Australia about the GST distribution.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Senator Macdonald finds that funny. I am interested that a senator from Queensland is laughing at the idea of a deal between another state government and his own Commonwealth government to send it more GST money—but there you go. We will never know the reason for this deal, but the deal was done. There is no doubt about that.

A lot of this inquiry went to the conduct of the Attorney-General, both in his handling of this matter and his handling of the inquiry. Senator Brandis has stated that he was very reluctant to intervene personally as Attorney-General despite having a very strong case which was ultimately vindicated in the High Court. I cannot remember the exact phrase that he used, but he was persuaded ultimately that he did need to intervene as a result of very strong advice from the Solicitor-General. You really would think that an Attorney-General would understand that one of his or her main roles is to uphold Commonwealth law, but unfortunately in Senator Brandis we have an Attorney-General who needs to be persuaded through strong advice that he should actually do his job and uphold Commonwealth law and protect the Commonwealth taxpayer. Unfortunately that is the kind of Attorney-General we have in Senator Brandis.

Not only was Senator Brandis very unwilling to intervene personally as Attorney-General, but evidence emerged over the course of this inquiry that he did go to lengths to attempt to stop the Australian tax office itself from intervening in this litigation. We took evidence over the course of this inquiry from very senior tax office officials who said that they were aware of bureaucratic whispers and rumours through the Commonwealth—

Government senators interjecting—

Again, we have government senators laughing about the fact that senior tax office officials were talking about their own government wanting to do a deal which would have deprived the Commonwealth of tax dollars. I do not think it is a laughing matter—I think it is important that Commonwealth ministers uphold the law and put the Commonwealth taxpayer first. It is unfortunate that we have some government senators, particularly Senator Macdonald, who think that this is a joke.

Tax office officials were conscious of discussions that were going on within the federal Public Service about the Attorney-General attempting to spike this litigation. It was interesting that finally, after a long-running battle with ministers and the tax office, only yesterday we finally obtained a copy of the email that was sent by the tax office to the Attorney-General's Department seeking permission from the Attorney-General's Department to get legal advice from the Solicitor-General to counter this concern that the Attorney-General was preparing to prevent them from intervening in this litigation. You have to wonder what was going on inside the Attorney-General's office and what directions they were giving to their department that would lead some of the most senior officials in the Australian Taxation Office to send an email to the Attorney-General's Department seeking permission to get advice from the Solicitor-General of this country to stop the Attorney-General from breaking the law. That is the kind of contempt that the Australian Attorney-General has for the law that he is supposed to uphold, and incredible efforts had to be undertaken by senior public servants, including the former Solicitor-General, to prevent him from breaking the law and trying to prevent the Australian Taxation Office from upholding the law. The inquiry was frustrated by the activities of the Attorney-General in refusing to answer questions on notice, claiming public immunity in circumstances far beyond what that provision intended.

The other infamous thing that arose in the course of this inquiry was the evidence that the Attorney-General had misled this chamber. Many of us might remember the Attorney-General's first statement on this matter to the Senate indicated that his first involvement in this case I think was on 4 March, at least in early March, 2016. Of course that was proven to be untrue as well by comments from the Western Australian Attorney-General from his own party which indicated that they had actually had a conversation about this sometime before. So yet again we have another situation where Senator Brandis misleads this Senate. He has contempt for the law, he clearly has contempt for the role, and the sooner he packs his bags and gets off to London the better we will be. This is a terrible episode in Australian public policy. It has left the Attorney-General's standing further diminished, and unfortunately in Senator Macdonald we have an outrageous chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. He does not want to do his job properly, he comes in and bullies people and now he just sits back thinking the whole thing is a joke. I commend the recommendations of this report.