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

Thank you for that interjection, Senator Bernardi. This has got a lot to do with Senator Dastyari. I'm going to contrast the behaviour of Senator Dastyari this morning, who resigned his position as deputy whip in this place, with that of Senator Cash. What we discovered was that she went before a Senate committee and not once, not twice, not three times, not four times but five times denied that her office had been the source of this leak to the media. Leaking details of an AFP raid is quite an inappropriate thing to do, and on five occasions Senator Cash denied that she had ever done this. But it turns out that, despite her and her staffer, Mr De Garis, denying it in the presence of the Prime Minister, in fact, her office had leaked this information. So we had a minister of the crown admitting that her office leaked information about a so-called important police raid to the media that enabled the media to tip off the organisation that was being raided, the Australian Workers' Union. In fact, the media turned up there, as I understand it, before the police arrived and had to ring their source just to confirm that there was, in fact, going to be a raid.

I'd ask you to consider the subsequent behaviour of Senator Cash, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan, because I'm sure you were concerned about that. She's responsible for her office. It's become very clear that on five separate occasions she's misled the parliament as to her actions and behaviour. What did she do? Did she come into this place and say: 'I'm taking responsibility under the Westminster system for my office. I've misled the parliament about this matter. It is my duty and my obligation to resign my ministry'? Is that what Senator Cash did? Did she follow the behaviour of Senator Dastyari this morning?