Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

He's a fixer. Thank you, Senator Watt. But, unfortunately, he's put himself in an unenviable position. He's put the Prime Minister in the same position. So it is a test for the Prime Minister. He could have rung him and said, 'Hey, let's rethink this,' but he hasn't done that.

Everyone is aware that on the Notice Paper today I am moving a motion for an inquiry into this particular paragraph of the Statement of Ministerial Standards and how they are enforced. Obviously that will be informed by some of the events that have taken place since Ms Bishop and Mr Pyne have taken up new positions. I foreshadow that we may need to call the Prime Minister to that inquiry—they are, of course, his standards. We need to find out the undertakings that he's made. There's information missing from Dr Parkinson, so we may need to call him and ask him to assist the Senate in respect of that inquiry. We almost certainly will need to invite Mr Pyne, such that his side of the story can be told and we can get to the bottom line. We'll probably have to talk to Ms Bishop as well. They're familiar with the building, so they'll know where the committee rooms are when we invite them! If this inquiry with the FPA committee gets up, EY will certainly get an invite, I'm sure, because we need to know what their thinking was and what they actually intended to achieve by employing Mr Pyne in this instance. We need to understand what their 'rigorous processes' are. So I'm very keen to look at that. Of course, we'll get some ethical experts in as well, if the inquiry goes ahead, to get a feeling of what the expectation is in the community, because clearly there are a bunch of people in this place that aren't able to gauge that very well. It is a wonder that we have a situation like this and parliamentarians feel that it's okay. I get a sense that Labor will support my motion today, so I hope that when I move it at 3.30 I get support for it.