Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

This is incredibly disappointing, absolutely incredibly disappointing. When you sit in a court of law as a witness, you're asked to take an oath. That oath is that you swear that you're going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I think those opposite have forgotten the middle phrase: the whole truth. That means you don't deflect, you don't divert, you don't intentionally withhold information from the Senate which you would be able to provide to the Senate. That's the mal-intent behind this manual which Senator Waters from my home state of Queensland touched upon. It's the mal-intent behind that manual, where you've got the information, you've got access to the information, you've had time to get the information, but you intentionally withhold that information and deflect. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—that's what the people of Australia expect.

As my friend and colleague Senator Cash said, it is like something out of Yes Minister. I've got the volume of Yes Minister at home. I'm going to bring it down for estimates. I'm also going to sit there with the manual, and every time a poor old public servant utters a phrase that's in the manual expect someone to say, 'Well, that's from page 4 of the manual, that's from page 5 of the manual.'