Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

For starters, you keep making this point about other Solicitor-General's advices, and I remind you, Senator Cash, you actually reappointed this Solicitor-General whom you now say has presented curated opinions for the Australian public. As you well know, no government releases Solicitor-General's advices that are provided to cabinet. The government that you were a part of didn't do so. For all I know, the Solicitor-General might have provided advice to cabinet about sports rorts and other things, but those sorts of advices went released. They might have provided advices on police raids on union offices, leaked by ministers' offices, but those advices weren't released. The government has continued the practice of many governments in not releasing the opinions of the Solicitor-General that are provided to cabinet. But we have released this advice, and we stand by it.

I really am still struggling to understand what you mean by your question: how does the parliament get around to the words 'subject to this Constitution'? Again, you keep asking me to explain words that have a plain English meaning. What subsection (iii) does is say that the parliament shall 'subject to this Constitution'—

Seriously? Today, I've had to explain to you who the First Peoples of Australia are, even though people know that. It's a matter of historical record, and it's actually in the wording—being the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. I've had to explain to you what the word 'representations' means, and now I have to explain the words 'subject to this Constitution', even though those words are contained in many other provisions of the Constitution. I'm not going to indulge this behaviour any longer. The words have a plain English interpretation. They've been interpreted many times by courts, and that's what they mean.