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

I also rise to take note of the answers of Senator Cash during question time. It was very interesting: up until a couple of weeks ago, the last sitting week or so, every day during question time we became used to Senator Cash coming into this chamber—usually on the back of a report that, coincidentally, she'd managed to get into a News Corporation paper that very day—to launch an attack on unions and working people, often based on very flimsy evidence. But it has been very interesting this week that Senator Cash has not decided to do that. She came in today and gave some answer about a question in the portfolio that she's representing another minister in. She has stayed well away this week from her traditional attacks on unions.

Now, why would that be? The only reason is that she at least has the self-awareness to understand that from estimates onwards not one person in this country takes anything that she says about unions seriously. The fact that she has launched a partisan campaign, based on flimsy evidence and using every arm of government available to her, against unions and working people was exposed at estimates, once and for all. And from that day onwards, everything that she says about unions, working people and the Labor Party no-one will ever believe again.

Let's just quickly remember what happened during estimates. We were all heading into estimates expecting to be asking questions of Minister Cash about her disgraceful handling of the other arm of the government against unions, being the ABCC. We all remember her own hand-picked appointment, Nigel Hadgkiss, who had to resign from his position in disgrace. We barely even got to that in estimates. There we were, ready to ask some questions about that, but Senator Cash and her office managed to concoct something even bigger still—an even bigger distraction from the affairs of the ABCC—and that was in the form of the AFP raid on union offices and the now notorious tip-off to the media by her own office.

It's well-known now that Minister Cash was asked about this over and over again during estimates, and on at least five occasions she misled the Senate committee as to what she knew and what her office had done in this entire affair. She had opportunities time and time again through that estimates proceeding—during lunchbreaks, morning tea breaks and afternoon tea breaks—she had every possible form of technology known to humankind in front of her and she was on it all day asking all sorts of questions of her office, but she never took the opportunity to ask her office whether the evidence she was giving the Senate was accurate. Do you know why? She didn't want to know the answer. She knew there was something going on there that she didn't want to know the full facts about. We can take only at face value the minister's answers when she said she was not aware that her own office had tipped off the media about the impending police raid on union offices, but there are so many questions that remained unanswered by this minister. They were not answered properly in estimates in any of the sessions. She was unavailable for the follow-up session and is now not making herself available for another estimates session until parliament rises for the year. Even today she has continued to refuse to answer these very legitimate questions that people all around Australia want answers to. She has still not answered, either to the committee or to the Senate, whether other members of her office were aware of the fact that the media were tipped off.

I asked Minister Cash about this on numerous occasions at the first and second estimates committee hearings, and each time she said she was unable to answer. I made it very clear that I wanted to know from her, beyond the one staff member who has resigned in disgrace, which other members of her office were aware that the media had been tipped off about the impending police raid. She has still not answered that question. She didn't answer it in estimates twice and she wasn't able to answer it and wasn't prepared to answer it here in question time again today. Beyond her own office, we still don't have answers as to what role the Prime Minister's office had in this affair. She wouldn't tell us at estimates and she won't tell us here in question time whether members of her office had spoken to the Prime Minister's office about the fact that they were tipping off media. She doesn't want to talk about that, because there's something she's still keen to hide, and today she wasn't prepared to tell us why she hid the truth from the Prime Minister. On the day this story broke she attended a question time briefing with the Prime Minister and misrepresented what one of the shadow frontbenchers, Anthony Albanese, had said on radio. She has been asked repeatedly: why did she mislead the Prime Minister? She continues to say no. We are not going to give this matter up. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.