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

Thanks for that, Madam Deputy President. I don't think anything could be more relevant. What could be more relevant than a minister coming in here, once again, claiming public interest immunity on behalf of another minister? I think it's appropriate for me to point out that the minister who is in here representing the other minister is one of the greatest abusers of public interest immunity in this place. This is a minister who misled the Prime Minister, as I said, and re-appointed Nigel Hadgkiss when she knew that Nigel Hadgkiss had breached the law. All she had to do was look at what this public servant was doing and she would have understood that he had no case to defend the indefensible that he had participated in.

This is a minister who uses her political power to interfere in other government instrumentalities—the ABCC, the Registered Organisations Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman. This is a minister who has got a web of advisers—former advisers, former mates, former Liberal cronies—in these so-called independent organisations to attack the trade union movement, to attack working people. This minister has misused her power as a minister. I've said it before: I watched a BBC Panorama program about the interference by Putin against his political opponents in Russia. I tell you, he could learn a lot from Minister Cash. He could learn a lot from this minister. To use your political power to misrepresent positions in this place, to use your political power to ensconce your mates in individual instrumentalities and then to use them to attack the trade union movement and working people in this country is an absolute disgrace.

The abuse of power by Minister Cash is, I think, just outrageous. This is a minister who, in my view, instigated the leak of the AFP raid. That's why she is so determined to use public interest immunity in this place. Is it feasible? It beggars belief that a senior person in Minister Cash's office tips off the media about the raid by the AFP that was instigated by Minister Cash using the Registered Organisations Commission, her creation, to attack the AWU. We know what it was all about. It was about attacking the Leader of the Opposition. It's a complete misuse of political power in this place. This minister misled parliament on five occasions. Then she had to come in and throw her staff under the bus, sacrifice her own staff, to save her own political skin. That's what this minister did. Everyone knows that that could not have happened without this minister knowing what was going on.