Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

President, in considering the point of order, I would invite you to consider that, in the previous parliament, more than 50 questions were asked directly on these related issues to then ministers and that the questions that have been asked over the course of this week relate to statements that were made by Senator Gallagher and by Senator Wong in the parliament and statements that they've subsequently made outside of the parliament in response to media queries as ministers—and there are a range of precedents that determine the validity of the questions that have been asked—and, through that, to consider the reasonableness of them continuing to be asked if necessary. These questions could have been curtailed had we indeed had a situation where Senator Gallagher acknowledged that she had misled and, having acknowledged that, simply corrected the record. However, that has not been the case, so the opposition has chosen to ask what we contend to be reasonable questions, consistent with existing practice and precedent and, within that, consistent very much with the type of prosecution we've seen of similar matters before.