Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, this is the first occasion I've had an opportunity to speak since your election this morning, and I wish to congratulate you on your election. I was very pleased, during the statements made today, to hear about your knowledge of the proceedings in the Senate, and we look forward to a continuation of a very fair exercise of power in your new position. As you well know, we had some significant dealings in your ministerial portfolio and my own shadow portfolio, and you certainly impressed me with your ability, your diligence and your sincerity in upholding the best of the traditions of the Senate. So good luck in this new position. That's about all I'm going to say nicely about you from now on!

We shouldn't be here today, Mr President, dealing with the issue of former President Parry's position. We should have done this months ago. We should have done it the day that the Attorney-General referred Senator Canavan, Senator Nash, Senator Roberts, Senator Ludlam, Senator Waters and even Senator Xenophon to the High Court. I have to say I thought President Parry was a good man. I thought he was a fair man, and I thought he did his absolute best to uphold the traditions and the obligations of the Senate. Yet today we're referring him to the High Court to seek, in all probability, a replacement. The question is: why didn't he add himself to that list that I referred to a moment ago? Of course, your Prime Minister, when he found out about this—and I'll say a little bit more about the circumstances of his acquiring knowledge of Senator Parry's resignation—said:

He chose to delay his reporting of it. He should have reported it much earlier …

They were the words of Mr Turnbull. I will repeat them just in case you didn't get it:

He chose to delay his reporting of it. He should have reported it much earlier …

The implication, of course, is that he knew about this, he kept it quiet, he didn't tell anybody and now he finds himself, as a result of the recent High Court case, in a situation where he was clearly in breach of section 44.

But I put to you, Mr President, that in fact President Parry did all of the right things that you would expect of somebody in his position. He obviously knew about his own family circumstances—the history of his birth and his father being born in the United Kingdom—so he went to a minister in your government. We understand now that he went to Minister Fifield and alerted Minister Fifield to the fact that he thought, based on his studies of his own citizenship, his ancestry, that he was potentially in breach of this clause in the Constitution. Now, we don't know exactly what he said and we don't know exactly what Senator Fifield's reply was. But let's be clear about this: Senator Fifield is a minister in this government. He's been told by the President of the Senate, 'I've got a problem with my citizenship.' What does he do about it when he gets that information? Does he go to the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, and say, 'Look, I know we've got a problem with Nash, Canavan and Joyce, but I think we've got a problem with Parry as well'? No, he doesn't do that, and I think the first question that this Senate has to consider is: what were the obligations of Senator Fifield to report this? If he wasn't going to report it to his Prime Minister, did he report it to other people? Did he report it to the Attorney-General?