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

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to follow the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis. I will direct a number of my remarks to the incredible double standards he is displaying in his response to the situation that now confronts the Deputy Prime Minister. Both yesterday in question time and today again, we have seen an extraordinary position taken by Senator Brandis, the first law officer of this country, who you would think would go out of his way to ensure that the law of this country and our Constitution was upheld. Instead, he is doing his usual twisting and turning—evasion—to try to preserve whatever remains of his government's political honour.

I had a look back at some of the comments that Senator Brandis made in question time yesterday, which he went on to repeat today. In answer to Senator Cameron's question about what the difference was between the situation Senator Canavan found himself in before—properly—standing aside and the one the Deputy Prime Minister now faces, Senator Brandis said:

There are obvious factual and legal differences between the two cases.

He didn't want to comment about what they were. He said:

Suffice it to say that, when acquainted with the situation on 25 July and on the basis of his understanding of the facts at that time, Senator Canavan decided that he would prefer to stand down. The facts of Mr Joyce's case are much clearer to us than were the facts as known to Senator Canavan at the time he made his decision.

I was shocked when I heard Senator Brandis make those comments. In essence, his argument was and seems to remain, based on his comments today, that in Senator Canavan's case the facts and the situation were unclear and, therefore, the right thing for him to do was to stand down from his ministry, while in the Deputy Prime Minister's case the facts are very clear—that he is a dual citizen, that he is a citizen of New Zealand—but for some reason he should remain in office as Deputy Prime Minister of this country.

Surely, if anything, it would be exactly the opposite. Surely, if anything, if a minister's situation is crystal clear, as is the case with the Deputy Prime Minister, that minister should be standing down immediately. It should be the minister whose situation is unclear who might just have an argument that he should remain in his position while the situation is clarified by the court. But instead we have the first law officer of this country getting up and trying to argue exactly the opposite. All I can hope—