Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

What we know is that, as a cabinet minister, Senator Cash has to make choices around probity and the right thing to do. For 480 days she's been avoiding coming clean and telling the whole story about what's been going on with her office. We've had a suspicion—Australians aren't stupid; they understand like we do—that there's something not right about what she's been saying.

She gave evidence in a committee that she'd had a one-sentence conversation with the Prime Minister when he called her to his office to brief him before he went into parliament about this matter. One sentence from Senator Cash to the Prime Minister? You've got to be joking! She told us that it was a media source that gave the information. We've found out in the last couple of days that that is not the truth. In terms of what we've been finding out as the week's gone on, pretty well everything the senator has been saying is not the truth. We knew, and this week is confirming, that it's a long way between what the minister has decided to tell this parliament and what really went on in her office. I believe it will be proven very, very soon that she has undertaken the most egregious dereliction of her responsibilities as a minister of the Crown. (Time expired)