Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Those questions focus on this government's attempts to avoid scrutiny across a range of different areas. It has become obvious to the Senate that, since its censure motion against Senator Brandis passed, his pattern of behaviour has only gotten worse. Let me run through, in the limited time that I have, some of those issues; I am sure that my colleagues will pick up the other matters raised.

My question to Senator Brandis today focused on the Monis letter. He told us that on 27 May Katherine Jones—but indeed he himself—gave evidence to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee estimates hearing. What happened next? Next Ms Bishop entered the House and accused both me and the shadow Attorney-General of asking contemptuous questions. This is not the first time that—either directly or indirectly—Senator Brandis has accused me of taking a contemptuous approach to something. So let us look more closely at what is occurring here.

We heard today—and, in fact, Senator Brandis essentially blamed Mr Moraitis, his secretary, for this—that it took three full days for his department to satisfy him about a very basic inconsistency. When the inconsistency was pointed out to him on Monday, 1 June, he said that he wanted to understand the facts. Well, where are those facts, Senator Brandis? You did not give us those facts in answers to questions today, even though it took you three days to get them. You had to take further questions on notice because you do not have those basic facts in front of you. What has not been answered is why it took a full week after we were accused of asking contemptuous questions for the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee to be satisfied—sorry, to receive a correction. Indeed, we are far from satisfied, because we have had no opportunity to ask further questions. When we sought urgently to ask further questions within the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, government senators stalled. They will not make time available to deal with this issue, so we will need to investigate other means.

Why won't government not face scrutiny on this? We suspect that there are issues with the other four documents that Mr Thawley referred to. Why was it that five documents were lost within the Attorney-General's Department? That is the critical issue. Why were four other documents made available to the Thawley review from other departments, when the lead department that is meant to have responsibility for national security could not provide those same documents? Where is the problem? Where is the logjam?

We have been accused of asking contemptuous questions in relation to the Lindt siege. These are not contemptuous questions. These are questions about how well we will manage such things in the future and how well is the Attorney-General's Department assisting in identifying when we should be alert and when we should be responding to issues. We now know—unlike three weeks ago—that there were five documents that the Attorney-General's Department failed to identify. All that we got today from Senator Brandis was that he is essentially blaming his secretary for taking three days to come back to the parliament. It should not have taken three days from 1 June until 4 June to identify the facts behind the advice that you were given on 1 June. It brings back memories to me of the 'children overboard' affair: 'We have plausible deniability until the full facts are provided.' Why did the Attorney-General delay this so long?

Mr Moraitis had already been counselled by me on this occasion as to why it took one month to come back to the committee about the correction of whether he had lost his briefcase—why on earth it takes one month to correct the evidence to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that, in fact, his briefcase had not been lost. This was the issue that Senator Brandis accused me of being contemptuous about—the nature of the evidence on the earlier occasion in relation to the Australia Human Rights Commission President. That is the other area where this government refuses to face scrutiny or, indeed, respond to a serious censure motion of this Senate.

The pattern of behaviour of this Attorney has only become worse. We saw it again today in the discussion over payments to people smugglers. How can he stand behind operational reasons or operational factors on an important question that all in the public want to have clarified? (Time expired)

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to respond to all three areas that the Labor Party have raised in their questioning of ministers today. Senator Collins touched on two of them. If this is the best the Labor Party have got, they are in serious trouble. Let us look at each of them. Senator Collins has come here on this issue around the letter and the best attack that she could make was that it took three days to get to the bottom of the matter. That seems to be at the heart of the criticism from Senator Collins. I say to Senator Collins and to other senators opposite that, when it comes to national security, our record is one we are very proud of. It is an issue we treat with the utmost seriousness.

From time to time, as those opposite would know because they experienced it in government, incorrect information is provided, inadvertently, by officials. In this case, that was acknowledged and there was an effort to get to the bottom of it and ensure that the correct answer was given. So Senator Collins's great attack appears to be that it took a few days to ensure we got the accurate information and got it to the parliament. That is not a legitimate criticism; it is not a decent criticism. I think Senator Collins suggested that Senator Brandis was trying to blame his secretary. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in getting to the bottom of it and coming back promptly, I think Minister Brandis would be very satisfied with the actions of his secretary. We could compare all sorts of instances under the previous government in terms of coming back and correcting the record, in some cases, on multiple occasions. And we would compare very favourably. But I come back to the central point and that is that we take our national security responsibilities very seriously.

What we have seen from those opposite on this issue is simply an attempt to play petty politics and petty point-scoring politics on what is a very serious issue. We will continue to work diligently, to ensure that the terrorist threat that this nation faces is dealt with in a strong and effective way. I believe that is what we are doing at the moment, but of course we need to be ever vigilant on these issues.

Other issues raised were around people smugglers and, of course, we had the reference to Professor Triggs. Those two of course are related, because one of the reasons that there have been criticisms of Professor Triggs by this government is that we saw the decision to launch an inquiry into the issue around children in detention at a time when this government had massively reduced the number of children in immigration detention. Professor Triggs was at an event today where I heard her reference 126 children now in detention. I do not know whether that is the exact up-to-date number but it was the number that Professor Triggs quoted today. That compares to around 2,000 at the height of the Labor Party's failed border protection policies. I note that there have been some protests in recent times—I note that this is Refugee Week—and I hope that at those protests there will be an acknowledgment, as they protest immigration detention policies and as they protest children in detention, that under this government we have seen a massive and substantial reduction in the number of children in detention with a view to there being none, as there was at the end of the Howard government.

So it is important that we put facts on the table when it comes to these matters and that we compare our record with the record of those opposite, who are asking the questions. When it comes to Professor Triggs's intervention, which senators opposite asked about, one reason that those on the government side do not have confidence in Professor Triggs is that she did not take it seriously enough to investigate children in detention, when in fact there were up to 2,000 under the former Labor government, but saw fit to investigate at a time when the coalition were dramatically reducing that number and dealing with the serious issues we had inherited.

In fact, we were stopping the boats, something that those opposite said we could not do. Those opposite said that we could not stop the boats. We have and there have been significant benefits as a result. One of those benefits is that we have seen a significant reduction in the number of children in detention. (Time expired)

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to engage in this take note of answers debate this afternoon because Senator Brandis's responses to questions without notice today epitomise what this government is. It is pompous, arrogant and out of touch. Senator Brandis showed all of those traits today. Senator Brandis is the Attorney-General, whose role is to defend the integrity of statutory public officials such as Professor Triggs and yet what does he do? He attacks that public official. Under Senator Brandis's watch the integrity of our system of governance in this country is declining badly because Senator Brandis is more intent on the politics of what he can do and not on what are the legal and constitutional issues that he should be looking after.

Then there was the arrogance of Senator Brandis during Senate estimates when he was reading bush poems, when serious issues were being discussed. I looked to see what kind of bush poem epitomises Senator Brandis. The one that I found was Banjo Paterson's Mulga Bill. Mulga Bill was a man who claimed he was excellent at everything and he was going to be an excellent cyclist. Mulga Bill was full of pride, arrogance and self-delusion. Who does that remind you of? It certainly reminds me of Senator Brandis. Mulga Bill got on the bike and, as Banjo Paterson said, he did it with a 'lordly pride'. He lost control of the bike

At the end of the poem, it says:

And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek

It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dean Man's Creek.

Well, Senator Brandis is in Dead Man's Creek, because Dead Man's Creek is where failed ministers go. That is why we have Mark Kenny in The Sydney Morning Herald saying that George Brandis 'could be the first man overboard'. And why shouldn't he be the first man overboard in this government? He has failed as the Attorney-General to do what an Attorney-General should do.

We have had these lofty speeches about looking after the security of this country. Senator Brandis was asleep at the wheel on national security at a time when we were told that we were under the highest threat in the history of this country. He has failed to put in proper procedures and protocols to deal with suspicious correspondence. His office received a letter from Man Haron Monis only weeks after the Prime Minister stood up and told all Australians that they had to be more alert and to refer everything suspicious they saw to relevant security agencies. This was correspondence from a known felon. He was on bail in relation to charges of violent assault. He had been in litigation with the Commonwealth and our highest court. He wanted to make contact with the head of ISIS and then referred to him as the 'Caliph', which is a term used by supporters of the group that this Prime Minister refers to as the 'death cult'. This was anything but routine correspondence, as claimed by Senator Brandis. This was a letter stamped as routine by Senator Brandis's office and referred to his department for a pro forma response. To make matters worse, it was not even referred to ASIO or the Australian Federal Police.

The Mulga Bill of the Senate, Senator Brandis, should not hang around and wait to get the flick. He should have the courage to say, 'I have failed; I have let the country down,' and he should just go away, onto the back bench, and read poetry—read Mulga Bill. (Time expired)

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise also to take note of answers and, particularly, the opposition's assertions about the scrutiny of the acting leader here. This is a very serious issue—the Lindt cafe siege and the security of this country are things that no Attorney-General would ever intend to stint on. I am sure it was not the former Attorney-General's intention to do that either, but it is interesting that Mr Dreyfus, the former Attorney-General of this country, was asleep at the wheel, if you could put it that way, on a national security issue. His record on the protection of our borders is nothing short of incompetent. He has tried to score a cheap political point out of a national tragedy and he ignores the fact that the matter was dealt with in exactly the same way that it would have been under him as the previous Attorney-General.

The letter was handled in accordance with long-established Attorney-General's Department procedures. Those procedures did not identify anything untoward in the letter. Those senators opposite—as do I and my staff—open mail every day in this place and at electorate offices. You attract the very highest level of intellect and capacity in the representations made to you, but you also receive some fairly crazy stuff. Mr Dreyfus also avoids the fact that the letters from Monis were sent to him as well as to other Labor ministers, including then Prime Minister Gillard and then Attorney-General McClelland. That is all missing from this debate, isn't it?

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is about taking a national tragedy and using it for cheap political points. The director-general of ASIO, a person of impeccable credentials, has examined the letter and advised that it had been dealt with in an appropriate way—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can't blame the security services!

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by being referred to the Attorney-General's Department. Despite all the demonstrations and shrillness from over there, we have an opposition who are, indeed, somewhat missing.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can't hide behind the security services.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is about national security. I note Senator Conroy chipping in; at the time, he was the Minister for Defence.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I wasn't.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is now the shadow minister for defence. He sat in the cabinet room while the previous government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, failed to do anything about developing a submarine shipbuilding contract—for six years. Not only did they fail to do that for six years; they took $16.8 billion from the Defence budget. This government will always do the right thing by the Australian people and will act within the law. When it comes to Operation Sovereign Borders, we will operate within the confines of the security of those operations.

Before I finish, I put on the record that, on 25 July 2012, the former Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd said:

The robust principle of all prime ministers and foreign ministers, past and present, is that we don't comment on intelligence matters.

Furthermore, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, said on Sky News on 28 May 2013:

I won't comment on matters of intelligence and security for the obvious reason—we don't want to share with the world and potential aggressors what we know about what they might be doing and how they might be doing it.

I suggest that they get on with some more serious policy matters on the other side and stop getting in the way of a government that is doing a very good job.

Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to this motion to take note of answers I rise to defend the freedom of speech of community legal centres, a sector in our community that is performing very valuable work on behalf of the vulnerable in our society. I do not need to remind honourable senators that approximately 250,000 people every year help this sector's campaigns for reform on a range of issues, including domestic violence, child abuse and other issues. It was reported recently, and it prompted the question to the Attorney-General, that the sector is worried about gag clauses being contained in agreements which are being developed between federal and state governments.

Whilst the Attorney-General in his response has denied that these are in fact gag clauses, he has confirmed in his response that the funding that is going to be provided to the CLCs is not to be used for advocacy, and he indicated that community legal centres could pursue 'any causes they like', in his words. But in his words the resources are most urgently needed elsewhere, other than in the field of advocacy. This is I think a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of community legal centres and the struggle for justice which has taken place in this country over a number of decades in which our CLCs have been at the forefront. The extensive experience of these organisations at the very front line of service delivery means that they are often able to provide unique insights and contributions to policy development in their areas of expertise. And as organisations are in close contact with disadvantaged Australians through public advocacy they provide another important avenue to justice by giving a voice to those who are often less able to advocate for themselves.

Lawyers at community legal centres are in a unique position to learn through real-world experience what is working and what is not in important areas such as consumer protection law, prohibitions on predatory lending practices, and laws to protect women and children against domestic violence. I know that the Attorney-General has an interest in those areas, so it is somewhat concerning that this valuable work is being curtailed by the funding approach of the Commonwealth.

But now of course in addition to the brutal funding cuts to legal services that this government has imposed since coming to office the Abbott government has directed that community legal centres must not spend Commonwealth funds on advocacy or law reform work. As I have indicated, I believe that this is a misconception of the role of CLCs which has occurred over a number of decades, in three particular areas. Firstly, Senator Brandis appears to draw a peculiar distinction between the needs of individual clients and the needs of the broader community. So, CLCs are self-evidently intended to serve their communities as a whole. And there are longstanding relationships with other organisations and they have the understanding to pursue issues on behalf of their client base. Secondly, Senator Brandis's argument that funding for advocacy necessarily comes at the expense of so-called actual clients is in my view deeply misconceived. And of course it could be said that we are not talking about a zero-sum game in this area. Casework and advocacy are mutually reinforcing. The cumulative experience that CLCs gain in their casework informs their advocacy. CLCs become specialists in the types of legal problems that afflict their clients and their communities. And the third argument I would put is that the government has failed to understand that CLCs are not just a particular sort of charity intended to provide free legal advice or representation. Those who founded the CLC movement saw systemic injustice in Australian law and society, and they intended to change that system. The legal assistance sector as a whole will be the poorer if we allow them to be restricted the limited purpose. CLCs have made a contribution to law reform disproportionate to their modest size and funding and the expert advocacy of community lawyers has indisputably made our legal system fairer. (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Collins be agreed to.

Question agreed to.