Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It's unsurprising that we saw that level of rhetoric and theatrical behaviour from Senator Brandis. It's utterly clear what's happening on the government side: they've had to back down on the royal commission into the banks after engineering a letter from the banks, 'By the way, we've changed our mind'—magically. Did you see? The letter came in, cabinet met and the Prime Minister was up by 9 am. In the meantime, we've got members of the coalition being quite clear publicly, telling the media and the public what they think of Mr Turnbull and what a leader he is or isn't.

Senator Brandis says Senator Dastyari is well-schooled in politics. Well, I'll tell you what Senator Brandis is good at: he's good at trying to create a distraction. He's good at trying to blow things up, to distract from the government's woes. That's his job, we understand that. But there was a lot of that in that contribution. I think people, again, will see that Senator Brandis has been a little inclined to overreach on this and a number of other matters. We all remember the New Zealand conspiracy. He has reprised that again today.

Senator Brandis interjecting—

I did listen to him in silence, Deputy President. I did give him the courtesy of listening to him in silence on this.

I want to deal with some of the matters which have been raised, and I will do so, I trust, without political shine. National security information and the operation of national security agencies are of paramount importance. I am pleased that one boundary the Attorney-General didn't cross was to suggest that the opposition doesn't deal with those matters appropriately, seriously, as an alternative government should. He knows that we do because he engages with us, as do the agencies in his portfolio, in these matters.

I make this point, firstly, on the South China Sea. I want to reiterate what Labor's position is: Labor's position is the government position. There is a bipartisan view on how we deal with the South China Sea. I again recognise that Senator Brandis did not assert that there is any deviation between the opposition and the government. Senator Brandis's rhetoric was probably a little harder than Ms Bishop might like. What I would say is that Labor, like the government, has called on all nations to abide by and respect the decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which held that Chinese claims surrounding the artificial islands were a breach of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We continue, as does the government, to support the UNCLOS, which includes, obviously, freedom of navigation.

The hypocrisy in some of what the Attorney was saying is self-evident. Yesterday we saw the Attorney, Senator Brandis, being asked about a donation by a Chinese donor. Mr Turnbull was sitting next to him, and he professed he didn't have any knowledge of it, despite the fact this has been well publicised in the media. He also waxes lyrical about—I'm not sure what he said; was it foreign influence inside the parliament? I just remind the government that Labor has had a bill to ban foreign donations in this parliament since November 2016. In fact, I think it was put in before Senator Conroy left; is that right?