Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to explain very briefly why I will be supporting the Attorney-General on this issue today. I thought that Senator Dastyari's two-minute-noodle address this morning was insufficient and left a lot of questions unanswered. Yesterday I was asked about the issue by Rafael Epstein out of the blue on the ABC, and I genuinely thought that the latest transgression by Senator Dastyari must've occurred before he was stood down by the opposition last year, before the Christmas break, before his summer holiday. I was shocked to discover that the latest transgression occurred after he'd been 'punished' by Bill Shorten, the opposition leader—made to resign from his position and then restored five months later. I thought surely it must've happened before that and he'd learnt his lesson. He hadn't. He's done something again. He is possibly in breach of national security. He certainly had a different attitude, privately, to his own party on the South China Sea issue. I also support this motion because I'm intrigued to find that Senator Dastyari and Bill Shorten have found a whole new word to describe lying—'mischaracterisation'.