Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm going to reserve my right to lodge the motion. I seek leave to make a short statement of no more than three minutes.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate and I thank you, Mr President. I will go very briefly to the circumstances. In September 2019 this Senate referred an inquiry into Australia's sovereign naval shipbuilding capability to the Senate Standing Committees on Economics. In February 2020 the committee requested assistance from Defence, looking for documents describing what Naval Group, BAE, Austal and Luerssen were offering to Australian industry in relation to their bids for work in the naval shipbuilding program. The committee wants to compare what was promised by the various different entities and what was actually contracted by Defence. The committee has agreed to accept those documents in confidence. The Department of Defence refused outright to provide the documents in May last year. The Senate agreed to an order for the production of those documents. The minister sought a PII, a public interest immunity claim, but the Senate refused that claim.

I'll go very quickly to the issue raised by the President in relation to the Secretary of the Department of Defence. An order for the production of documents has the same standing as a subpoena from a court. Maybe the Privileges Committee needs to consider whether or not it would be appropriate for a minister to refuse to allow an official to respond to a subpoena from a court. I refer to the High Court case of Pirrie v McFarlane in 1925, where Chief Justice Knox made it very clear that the law of the Commonwealth requires soldiers—and presumably officials—to obey not any command but any lawful command.

The Senate has the final say on this and, with indulgence, I'll read a short statement from Erskine May:

The Crown of these realms is hereditary, being subject, however, to special limitations by Parliament; and the kings or queens have ever enjoyed various prerogatives, by prescription, custom, and law, which assign to them the chief place in Parliament, and the sole executive power. But as the collective Parliament is the supreme legislature, the right of succession and the prerogatives of the Crown itself are subject to limitations and change by the consent and authority of the King or Queen for the time being, and the three estates of the realm in Parliament assembled. To the changes that have been effected, at different times, in the legal succession to the Crown, it is needless to refer, as the Revolution of 1688 is a sufficient example. The power of Parliament over the Crown is distinctly affirmed by the statute law, and recognized as an important principle of the constitution.

That is given effect through section 49 of our Constitution. The Senate is supreme in this matter. It's an important matter. We need to be able to get on with our work.