John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In politics it is said that if you excite the interest of your opponents then you must be actually achieving something. From the events of the last few days, it appears that the Member for Bass, Mr Michael Ferguson, must be doing very well as a local representative. Why? Because the Australian Labor Party has slowly wheeled out all its big guns to mount a baseless political attack on him. First, we had Senator O’Brien, in the late adjournment last week, dredging up completely false allegations that Mr Ferguson had somehow breached the provisions of the Companies Act and spreading sufficient innuendo to make it look as though Mr Ferguson had some case to answer. Then we had the same senator, Senator O’Brien, making totally baseless allegations about Mr Ferguson’s personal website. Now we see that Senator O’Brien has put on notice questions designed to attack the church—churches are under a lot of attacks lately—to which Mr Ferguson and many of his, my and Senator O’Brien’s constituents belong: a big church in Launceston.

Then in the other place the member for Denison, Mr Kerr—a colleague of mine—was prodded by his colleagues into asking a question of the Speaker to make a totally specious claim about Mr Ferguson. I repeat: if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick. This is obviously the motto of the ALP dirty tricks campaign department. They slander and defame someone under the cloak of parliamentary privilege and hope that something will stick—however baseless the allegations.

Let me deal with these dirty tricks in order. The first assertion was that Mr Ferguson had somehow breached the Corporations Act 2001 because ASIC had not been notified of his resignation as a director of a public company. Senator O’Brien was very careful in what he said in this place, as he spread the mud, because if he had read the act itself he would know Mr Ferguson had done nothing wrong whatsoever. Yes, section 205A of the act provides that a director may—and I emphasise ‘may’—advise ASIC of their resignation as a director. However, that same section goes on to say that any action by a director does not affect the company’s obligations to advise ASIC under section 205B. As anyone who knows even a small amount about corporations knows, it is the obligation of the company secretary, not the directors themselves, to advise ASIC about appointments and resignations of directors. Indeed, section 5 of the act, which amongst other provisions sets out the duties of company secretaries, says that the first duty of a secretary is that he or she:

... notifies ASIC about changes to the identities, names and addresses of the company’s directors ...

Therefore, it was not Mr Ferguson’s responsibility to notify ASIC of his resignation—it was the secretary’s obligation. So we can dismiss that baseless allegation.

Now we address the next baseless allegation made by Senator O’Brien under privilege. Senator O’Brien’s allegation is that Mr Ferguson’s personal website said that he was awarded the ‘order of the British empire award for community service’ in 2000 and that this claim is somehow untrue. As someone familiar with the Order of the British Empire Association, which has chapters in every state, I know that Mr Ferguson was indeed the recipient of an award before he entered parliament. There is no such honour as the ‘order of the British empire’ in any case. How could Labor claim that the member for Bass had been untruthful? They are making, whether deliberately or not, the common error of confusing the order of the British empire with the separate honour of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which entitles a person to the letters ‘OBE’ after his or her name. That is a monumental mistake. Michael Ferguson has never claimed that he received this honour. All he claimed was the truth: that he was proud that a non-political organisation of eminent people in Tasmania had seen fit to give him an award for community service—an award quite consistent with Mr Ferguson’s hard work in the Northern Tasmanian community both before and after his election to the House of Representatives.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear! Exactly.

John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Abetz. So much for that baseless allegation. Finally, the member for Denison, Mr Duncan Kerr, has been roped in to this dirty tricks effort. I say ‘roped in’ because I cannot believe that someone who is a senior counsel in the Supreme Court of Tasmania could actually for a moment believe what he has alleged or be completely comfortable in making those allegations, whether in parliament or not. Mr Kerr raised the matter of the website with the Speaker, alleging a contempt of parliament. Again, that was a totally baseless, muckraking exercise and it was beneath the character that I know the member for Denison possesses. The contents of any senator’s or member’s personal website are the personal responsibility of the senator or member concerned and theirs alone. When any person clicks on the link after the APH official biography for any member to go to the member’s website, the following caution appears:

You are now leaving the Parliament of Australia Web site. We have no control or responsibility for external sites.

Therefore, the member for Denison—or the people who forced the question on him—knew, or should have known, that it was nothing to do with the Speaker, just as any claims made by any senator or member on their websites are nothing to do with the Speaker or even you, Mr President. The Speaker has advised Mr Kerr that Mr Ferguson has no case to answer whatsoever. It is just more mud. It is just baseless mud. I am sure the decent Tasmanians who make up the Order of the British Empire Association—many of whom I know personally—know exactly why Mr Ferguson was awarded their service award. I am equally sure they would be unimpressed to be drawn into this political attack.

Finally, Senator O’Brien has put down a series of questions on notice about a particular church. He of course knows that counted among the large congregation of this church is the member for Bass. Because of that, Senator O’Brien unfortunately decided to proceed on an ill-advised witch-hunt about federal government funding the church may or may not have received. I do not know whether that particular church has received any federal grant. What would be wrong if they had? Quite frankly, I cannot see why Senator O’Brien, having never in his parliamentary career shown an interest in this area, suddenly decided to pursue this matter—except of course for the broader attack on Mr Ferguson. How unpleasant can you get—attacking any church purely because an MP might happen to attend it?

If this is their approach so far, I can imagine that Labor will ensure that things will get very nasty in the forthcoming Bass campaign. I think that is unfortunate. The electorate does not like these baseless personal attacks on a person’s integrity. Labor know that the previous federal member has decided on a state career and has been successfully elected to the state House of Assembly. I congratulate Michelle O’Byrne on that. However, without any high-profile candidate for Bass, Labor have reverted to the oldest trick in the political book: if you cannot beat your political opponent in a fair fight then raise as much smear, dirt and innuendo as you can. It does not of course matter to Labor whether it is true. They have the umbrella of parliamentary privilege to protect them from that. They will just be satisfied if they can smear the reputation of an exceptionally talented and hard-working politician. I know that, whatever Senator O’Brien and others do, Michael Ferguson will not be distracted. He will continue to fight for the people of Bass, in their interests and for their betterment. Tasmanians like robust political debate. They dislike like mud-slinging. On election day, I am quite confident the judgment of the electors of Bass will reflect that.