James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Waiver of Debt and Act of Grace Payments) Bill 2019. I listened very carefully to the contributions made by Senator Siewert, substantially about robodebt, and by Senator O'Neill, substantially about the Foreign Investment Review Board and also robodebt. I will be making some concrete observations about the bill itself later in my speech, but, like Senator Siewert and Senator O'Neill, I'd like to make some closely related observations about transparency in general—the principle of transparency and the importance of transparency in government, in public life and for political parties.

In a way, it's very apposite that Labor senators—Senator Gallagher, in particular—have moved a private senator's bill this morning that goes to the issue of transparency, because it is an issue which has been very prominent in the media in the last 24 hours. I know that transparency is something that's important to all senators, Labor senators included; in fact, they have a great opportunity today to contribute to the transparency that we know is so important in our public life. I encourage them to make that contribution here in the chamber, or through the media, or by whichever means that they feel is most appropriate. I'm referring, of course, to the matters in the media this morning, and last night on the 60 Minutes program, and in The Age regarding Mr Somyurek, the now-former member of Mr Andrews' cabinet in the Labor government of Victoria.

In the interests of transparency, there are some fairly important issues to be answered about this affair and the extent to which it involves the federal Labor Party here in Canberra. I'm sure, of course, that federal Labor MPs will be going out today, their lines given to them by the Leader of the Opposition's office, to say: 'This is a state matter. This is a matter for Mr Andrews. This is not a matter involving the federal Labor Party.' In fact that's not the case, and we know that's not the case for a number of reasons.

Mr Albanese said in one of his interviews this morning, in the morning media, that he barely knows Mr Somyurek—he might have met him a couple of times—and that most people outside of Victoria wouldn't have even heard of him. I thought that was a little bit strange, given that Mr Somyurek is a member of the national executive of the Labor Party, attends national executive meetings with Mr Albanese—presumably sits alongside him in some of those meetings—and engages in matters of state that concern the Australian Labor Party and its national governance. As I understand it, in fact he's a significant and quite influential figure on that national executive, so it would surprise me if Mr Albanese doesn't know Mr Somyurek and doesn't know him very well.

We heard in the recordings last night, televised by 60 Minutesboth audio recordings from telephone calls and, in fact, sensationally, video evidence, which I'll come to in a minute—that Mr Somyurek claims to effectively own, control and have great influence over a number of members of Mr Albanese's caucus. He claimed to have called in the member for McEwen, Rob Mitchell, to inform him that his career was coming to an end. That's an interesting power for a state politician who's got no connection to the federal Labor Party to have. But he called Mr Mitchell in and said, presumably, that his performance was not up to standard by Mr Somyurek's estimation and that his career would be coming to an end. He boasted of how the career of the member for Bruce, Mr Hill, would be coming to an end—that he'd be sacking him from the federal government in the same way he had sacked a number of local government authorities in Victoria. He even claimed, and quite amusingly re-enacted, his engagements with the member for Gellibrand, Mr Watts, who apparently bows—