Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to go to the issue of the five misleads of the Senate by Senator Cash, the Minister for Employment. The Australian government has issued a Statement of Ministerial Standards. That statement says:

Ministers and Assistant Ministers are entrusted with the conduct of public business and must act in a manner that is consistent with the highest standards of integrity and propriety.

They are required to act in accordance with the law, their oath of office and their obligations to the Parliament.

In addition to those requirements, it is vital that Ministers and Assistant Ministers conduct themselves in a manner that will ensure public confidence in them and in the government.

Senator Cash has lost that confidence. Senator Cash and her office have behaved in a way that is reprehensible for any government minister. Misleading the Senate on five occasions is an extremely serious issue and, if the minister won't resign, the Prime Minister should terminate her position.

This morning, I attended a meeting of the employment committee. I had asked previously in this place a question of Senator Cash as to why she had refused to make herself available for any one of the 40 days between 27 October and 6 December so that this place—the Senate—the Parliament of Australia and the public of Australia can get to the bottom of the cover-up that is now in place by Senator Cash and the government around what Senator Cash did in setting loose the Registered Organisations Commission and the Federal Police on the AWU to get 10-year-old documents for a donation that was made by the AWU to a non-government organisation.

I was extremely surprised and, I must say, a bit shocked that this morning Senator Reynolds, the chair of the committee, and Senator Paterson, the other Liberal member on the committee, who have the numbers on that committee, started to question me about why I asked a question in the Senate in relation to the behaviour of Senator Cash. I felt I was being put on trial by both Senator Reynolds and Senator Paterson. The first thing I want to say is that I will not be intimidated by Senator Reynolds and certainly not by Senator Paterson—absolutely not—but this is a very serious issue. This is an attempt by this government to shut down proper inquiry by this place and by the opposition into the activities of a disgraced minister, Senator Cash.

I am absolutely disgusted that this morning I was told, basically, that I was going to be put before the Privileges Committee. I welcome being put before the Privileges Committee on any of my actions in relation to exposing the misconduct of a minister and the bad behaviour of a minister and her office. I don't have a problem with that, because that will be another avenue to expose the bad behaviour of this minister.

This is a minister who has in her period used royal commissions, the ABCC, the Registered Organisations Commission and now the Fair Work Ombudsman to attack the government's political enemies. These are organisations that are supposed to be acting in the public interest and, in my view, they are becoming more and more a tool of Senator Cash and the government. This is unacceptable in a democracy. A senator raises issues and problems with this behaviour, and the threat is made against me as a senator in this place that I would be sent to the Privileges Committee under a trial by Senator Paterson and Senator Reynolds using their numbers in that committee to send me to the Privileges Committee.

Understand what's going on here. There are Liberal Party apparatchiks being placed in key positions in these organisations that are supposed to be independent organisations, upholding the law of the land. It is being done by this government to influence the operations of these organisations. It is an absolute disgrace. This is more like what you would see a dictatorship do against the political enemies of the dictatorship. It is unacceptable. I will not be intimidated by Senator Cash, the government, Senator Reynolds or Senator Paterson. It is unacceptable that I cannot ask questions in this place about the accountability and integrity of a minister or the cover-up that a minister is engaging in.

It is absolutely unbelievable that Minister Cash could not have been aware of the conduct of one of her senior advisers and media directors. It is absolutely unacceptable that that would happen. Their argument was that the information came from the media. Well, in my view, the media person in ROC advised Senator Cash's office, and then that was sent out to the media, and the Federal Police turned up at the AWU offices with television cameras already in place. This is a petty dictatorship that Malcolm Turnbull and Senator Cash are presiding over.