Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) 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 senators today.

I want to try and encapsulate the essence of those questions that were put to Senator Brandis, starting with the A to G—that is, the Attorney-General, obviously. A is for the ABC broadcast, and we know how those people on the other side feel about the ABC. B is for books and, I guess, to be precise, it should be about poetry. C is for citizenship and E is for e-security, and we all remember the metadata and the performance by the Attorney-General with that. F is for funding and the funding for arts, which we know he has cut, and we know about the funding of his books to go into his very expensive bookshelf in his office. And of course all Australians remember that G is for Gillian Triggs. This government's performance in terms of attacking Ms Triggs is well known and has been deplored. The Attorney-General's performance in his personal attacks on the credibility of this public servant has been absolutely deplorable.

We all know that this government is in chaos, but what we are really not quite sure about is whether it is a matter of the ministers in this government being totally incompetent or just untruthful. There are so many examples of how out of touch this government is, and no-one is more out of touch than the Attorney-General. There was his performance at the recently-held estimates, and the way in which he and his department have dealt with the correspondence they received from Man Haron Monis in relation to the siege at the Lindt Cafe; the fact that he waited for over a week before he corrected the public record. This is a man who comes into this chamber day after day and tries to berate the opposition for our term in government.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He does not try to—he does!

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He tries, but he is not very good at it. For somebody who is the Minister for Arts, he obviously failed his auditions this week. And today we saw a grand performance of how he can slap the lectern when he is trying to make a point, when he can yell and then we have those on the other side, Senator Macdonald, wanting to have the microphones turned up. What a performance—what a pitiful performance from those opposite.

Let us turn to the comments that were made today by the Attorney-General in relation to the allegations that this government paid those smugglers. To turn back the boats, the Prime Minister and those opposite have always said that they would do 'what has to be done'. Today we heard that, no, they have done everything within the law; but they still have not answered whether cash was handed over to the people smugglers. They still refuse to say that. But they have not addressed the morality of this act.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I know you allow a very wide range of issues, but this question of turning back the boats was yesterday's series of questions, not today's. The member is speaking on a motion to take notice of Senator Brandis' answers today.

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

There is no point of order.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not matter when we look at the performance of the Attorney-General. Yes, it was referred to by one of the questions in relation to the media speculation about when there is going to be a shift in the ministry and whether or not Senator Brandis will be moved on. But I have to say that, with his performance this week, I think he was trying to audition for what was some media speculation that I do not think is going to be true: that the government will be looking for a new leader in the Senate. I do not think that is going to happen, but I will say that it was not a very good performance.

If we turn our mind to something else which is of serious concern to the community—funding to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders—and the fact that this government has yet again, in so many ways, attacked those and cut funding that would support the most vulnerable Australians. Senator Brandis has overseen another strike against this government when they are attacking those who can least afford to be attacked. If we talk about arts funding—and we know that Senator Brandis loves his ballet—and where that funding from this government has gone, it has always been in those areas. (Time expired)

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to stand up here and contribute to this debate, because this debate will clearly show what is different between us and them. The Labor Party think that we are just like them. They think that we are all us and we are just like them. Well, we are not like you, Senator Polley. We actually are making decisions consistent with good government. Unlike the government that you administered for six years, we have made decisions consistently with things going through cabinet, going through national security committees and going through the party room as well, and a clear decision has been made by the cabinet to remove citizenship from those dual-citizenship Australians who fight in terrorist armies overseas, at times against Australian troops. We have made a clear decision through the entire coalition decision-making process that those people should have their citizenship stripped in that case. That is our decision; that is what we have done, and we have put it through the process. But that is not the position of the Labor Party. Some time in the last 24 hours—I am not exactly sure when Mr Dreyfus appeared on Sky News—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Brandis. Mr Dreyfus, the shadow Attorney-General, was on news this morning and was asked directly about this question: whether dual citizens should have their citizenship stripped in the case of them fighting in terrorist armies. He was putting the case that we need to give them some kind of judicial review on this decision and let the courts decide whether they should have their citizenship stripped. There is a practical issue here, of course: how are you going to have that court review when we are trying to keep these people out? Mr Dreyfus's response was very clear: 'You get them back here.' That is what he said—a direct quote. He was asked: how are we going to provide a court review process for people who are suspected of being, and probably have been, involved in fighting for terrorist armies overseas? The policy now, apparently, of the Labor Party is that you get them back here. This is how we are different from them. We believe that we do not want to get people who have been fighting in terrorist armies back here. We want to keep them out of here. The Labor Party want to bring them back into our country—people who have potentially been fighting against Australians; people who have signed up with loyalty to another cause that is inconsistent with the requirements of being an Australian and supporting Australia. They want to get them back here in this country to potentially spread their message of hate and intolerance through our country as well. We reject that. That is not our policy. That is not what the coalition stands for. We will fight every day and week to ensure that these people do not come back into our country and we are able to keep our people safe from the harm that they would seek to do to us.

The other way we are different from the Labor Party is that we have gone through the proper process. There is an absolute litany of examples from the previous Labor government of how they corrupted a cabinet decision-making process, how they ignored collective decision making and how often decisions were rammed through by one or two or four individuals. We have seen many examples of that this week on our TVs, but there was a book written late last year by Paul Kelly which extensively catalogued these examples. Just one quote from that book is:

The same story often occurred at cabinet meetings, or the 'gang of four'—

that is, the Strategic Budget and Priorities Committee, which thankfully no longer exists—

Gillard recalls: 'I saw him—

that is, Kevin Rudd—

treat the whole National Security Committee badly. He'd keep them waiting endless hours. He'd come in late, grumpy, carrying around his bloody cushion, looking miserable, treating them like school children.'

That does not happen under a coalition government. We still have a national security committee, but it meets regularly, it makes decision in an orderly way and it is not treated with the kind of disrespect that was shown by the former Labor government. You need to have that process if you want to keep Australians safe. You have to have these things in place if you want to make sensible decisions after due consideration of the issues to keep Australians safe. This debate is about that. That is exactly what this debate is about. It is one of our fundamental priorities: here is a parliament and the job of those in government—almost their No. 1 job—is to try their best to keep Australians safe. We will never necessarily succeed every time, but we must do all we can to keep them safe. The coalition and this government is committed to doing that and making the appropriate changes in the law to have that done. With the Labor Party, there is a huge question mark right now.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We saw at the end of question time today just how light on his feet the Attorney-General is when he refused a request to table a letter by Senator Wong regarding a letter that was published on The Guardian website by Greg Hunt.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. The senator is misleading the Senate. I did not refuse leave to table a letter—

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

Senator Brandis, accusations of misleading the Senate are not covered under the standing orders. It is not a point of order. Senator Brown, you have the call.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had not actually finished. What I was going to say to the Senate is that it just shows the arrogance of the Attorney-General. The basis of the refusal was that the letter that was requested to be tabled was a document. This is the problem the Attorney-General has with not only the Senate but also the community. It is the arrogance and what has been shown as the incompetence of the Attorney-General and Minister for Arts. He does not listen; he certainly does not listen to the community. He is disrespectful of the processes of the Senate, particularly as we have seen in budget estimates, where he enjoys reading poetry instead of listening and being part of the budget estimates process. He is going to have plenty of time to read more poetry when his actions are subject to not just one but two Senate inquiries, which were supported—for the first time, I believe—by all eight crossbenchers, who voted with Labor. One inquiry will be a review of the handling of the letter sent to the Attorney-General on the Martin Place siege gunman, Man Haron Monis.

The fact that Labor, the Greens and all the crossbenchers voted together to establish this inquiry is a clear reflection on the seriousness of this matter, and the Senate's complete lack of confidence in the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General's handling of this issue certainly beggars belief. He continued here, today, in a response to questions to give a totally implausible explanation as to the delay on why the record was not corrected. It is a completely implausible explanation, and a Senate inquiry has had to be set up to look at exactly what has happened around this very serious matter.

The second Senate inquiry will delve into the depths of the ineptitude of the Minister for the Arts, by examining the Abbott government's decision to strip $105 million from the Australia Council. Again, the Senate has had to establish a Senate inquiry. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to establish this inquiry into the decision of Senator Brandis to cut the Australia Council in order that he—as we heard in question time today in the question from Senator Collins—could establish his own personal slush fund to support his own pet arts projects. We know that in doing this Senator Brandis consulted no arts groups and only informed the Australia Council hours before announcing the funding cut in the budget. That is what Senator Brandis said in answer to the question here today.

In fact, so arrogant is Senator Brandis that he does not even feel the need to consult with his cabinet colleagues on significant issues of national security. This week we have learnt that the full federal cabinet was not shown advice from the Solicitor-General on changes to citizenship laws for suspected terrorists. So angry were the colleagues of Senator Brandis that no fewer than three senior government sources spoke to media outlets to confirm that the advice was not shown to the full cabinet. So what we have seen here with the conduct of Senator Brandis and his arrogance is the Senate on two occasions establishing inquiries into his decisions, and his own cabinet colleagues have come out —(Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to take note of answers to questions in question time today, but I am really quite astounded after having listened to the contribution of Senator Brown opposite, who I too thought was going to be taking note of answers to questions in question time today. In fact, all I have heard was Senator Brown taking the opportunity to spend five minutes to reflect adversely on the Attorney-General. She made no real attempt, apart from the last 35 seconds, to say anything apart from being blatantly rude to the Attorney-General. I chose not to take a point of order, because I thought I would much rather have the opportunity to stand and say that I thought it was the most disgraceful exhibition of a personal attack on a minister of the Crown that I have seen in this place recently.

Today was quite an extraordinary question time in the sense that we had the most extraordinary, eclectic group of questions. It is very difficult to get any train of thought about how to take note, when you consider the breadth of the issues that were raised. I am not quite sure what they were trying to get at. I will address the answers to the questions that we have given today and not dwell any further on the personal attacks. As an example, we are talking about the Australia Council funding. A decision by a government to prioritise how it spends its money is exactly that: a decision by government to prioritise. We all know that we do not have boundless or limitless funding that we can spend on anything. A decision by a minister; a decision by the government; a decision by cabinet—whatever the appropriate decision may be—to decide how they are going to allocate funding within a limited budget is not a matter that necessarily deserves the kind of vitriol and bile spewing that we saw this afternoon on the Attorney-General's decision to prioritise arts funding in a particular way.

In another question, Senator Wong asked Senator Brandis about to the citizenship issue. It is quite extraordinary that we should be sitting here and debating whether at all we actually want people to come back to this country who have dual citizenship and who have taken it upon themselves to go and fight with a terrorist organisation in an overseas jurisdiction. As a mother, I can assure you I do not want this type of person back in this country influencing my children, or even attempting to influence other people in this country in a way that may have a detrimental impact on the safety and security of this nation. Today, in response to a question from Kieran Gilbert, we heard the shadow Attorney-General make a comment in relation to whether we wanted these particular people back in the country. I will quote what Mr Mark Dreyfus said this morning:

Well, you get them back here. Right? So I think the government needs to explain a great deal more but most importantly the government needs to come forward with a clear, concrete proposal.

I can assure you that the government has a very clear and concrete proposal: we do not want these terrorists coming back to this country to influence or to terrorise the people of this country. As Senator Canavan said in his contribution, this government takes the security of the people of Australia as seriously as it takes anything. In regard to the comments made this morning by Mr Dreyfus, I am sure he will come out and have some sort of explanation at some later point. He certainly needs to. To suggest that we want these people back in this country after what they have done is an extraordinary comment.

We then had Senator Bilyk once again ask Senator Brandis about asylum seekers—and this was after the ridiculous questions yesterday about credible witnesses being captains of boats that smuggled people. A credible witness is somebody who actually makes their living out of international criminal activity? I am not sure who is making up the question time questions for the Labor Party, but it was almost like being given a dorothy dixer and the opportunity to explain that under our watch we have stopped the boats. We have stopped people drowning at sea. We have stopped people getting pushed down the lists. We have got most of the children out of detention. We have not seen a thousand people drown at sea. It seems really quite extraordinary that that would be a question that they thought was a good idea to put up for question time today.

Then Senator Sterle decided that he would give another question to Senator Brandis, and then Senator Urquhart gave a question to Senator Brandis. Obviously, Senator Brandis—despite the fact that the other side seem to take great delight in throwing mud at you and making disrespectful accusations—they still think that you are nice enough that they want to ask you all the questions. (Time expired)

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I must acknowledge your patience. The other day I was making a contribution on the motion to take note of answers to questions that were given to ministers, and you quite appropriately pulled me up. I was off track, but that is all I have heard today. Senator Ruston gave Senator Brown a good bollocking about not being on message, so to speak. Through you, Deputy President: you were way off, Senator Ruston, and then you went into it and you talked about all sorts of nonsense that we had not even mentioned in here.

I will get back to the crux of my contribution, and it is answers that were given to questions to the Attorney-General and Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Brandis. I just want to note that when one of our senators questioned a message that was going around on the internet from Mr Greg Hunt MP, the Minister for the Environment, it was an indictment of the government that they would not allow the document to be tabled. I think that it was very appropriate, because we have just sat here listening to filibustering this week. I have sat in your position on a number of occasions, Mr Deputy President, and I have listened to some of the speeches; I think that this was all just coverage for the Prime Minister because he has gone out and done another captain's pick. In my interpretation of this, the government were quickly trying to cover the Prime Minister's backside because of some dopey deal that he was trying to do without consulting his cabinet.

I think it is important that we do actually acknowledge what the heck is going on. For those poor devils in the gallery that listen to some of the personal attacks in this chamber: look, there is nothing wrong with a good bit of argy-bargy—we all engage in it, and we all have thick skins like rhinoceroses—but there are times when the debate in this chamber and in this parliament is absolutely beyond the schoolyard. The saddest part about this is before I got to this place I saw this establishment, this building here, as the epitome of our democracy; but since the time that the now Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, became the Leader of the Opposition, the quality of the debates and the personal attacks—well, I put it down to he started it. We must never forget some of the disgusting stuff that was going on against Prime Minister Gillard, led ably by the now Prime Minister standing in front of shocking posters saying, 'Juliar … Bob Brown's bitch'. Then Senator Ruston comes out here and cries crocodile tears about attacking Senator Brandis. Senator Brandis is a QC; he can cop as much as he can dish out. It was an honourable thing to try and come to his defence. But, seriously—through you, Mr Deputy President—Senator Ruston, that was quite poor.

I have come from another angle. I have sat there and watched Senator Brandis be involved in a number of embarrassing situations and gaffes. Let us just not think that it is one incident in this chamber or the odd Walkley-winning interview on Sky News—I think that Senator Brandis is defending something even worse here, and it has to be the quality of the leadership in this country. Who would have thought that just after 12 months the government would be going into a leadership spill? Who would have thought that leaks would be coming out of cabinet in the first year of a new government? Who would have thought for one minute that the Prime Minister would go to a spill and win 61-39 to a vacant seat?

Senator Back interjecting—

The leaks keep coming. Through you, Mr Deputy President, I sat there in silence. I listened to Senator Canavan's pretty meek defence of the Attorney-General today. His words were, 'It's not your decision; it's our decision; we've made this decision,' in reference to the citizenship debate. Senator Canavan, I do not know what planet you have been on and I do not know what garden bed you have been sniffing around after using the cigarette lighter; this came from a leak. This was on the front pages of the paper. It was not your decision. Your caucus did not sit there and say, 'Dear Prime Minister, we want to get tough on these so-and-sos who are dual citizens, and we want to kick them out'. You should have seen the look on their faces. You would have thought that they trod on dog poo with no thongs on! They were just as surprised as us. They had absolutely no idea. The media had it. Fairfax had it; Murdoch had it. Senator Canavan, hilarious! Congratulations! I did sit there; I wanted to listen to it.

Senator Brandis has been successful in one thing, as my colleague Senator Brown said: he has united the crossbench. We have seen the crossbench, as one, all vote on a couple of references. Congratulations, Senator Brandis, you have been very successful in the last couple of days! (Time expired)

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 168, I move:

That the document quoted by Senator Sterle in his speech be tabled.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, I will ask you to table the document.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I now table the document.

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

Thank you, Senator Sterle. The question now is that the motion moved by Senator Polley be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Are there further motions to take note of answers?

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Human Services (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Whish-Wilson today relating to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Senator Payne was right that there is cut and thrust on this issue in the US. There certainly has been now for many months. In fact, this is the single biggest political issue in the US Congress at the moment and has been for the last six weeks at least. My question is: where is the cut and thrust here in Australia? Where is the cut and thrust on this debate? Why is it not in the mainstream media? Why is parliament here in Australia not debating concerns around the lack of democratic input by parliament and the Australian people into these secret partnership agreements? They are not trade agreements. They are called 'partnership agreements' for a reason. And what they do is to attempt to synchronise laws and regulations between countries. For all intents and purposes, they are deregulation agendas.

You would at least expect that matters of significant public interest and negotiations that impact those agreements would be looked at by our parliament. But, as we have mentioned here several times before, this deal will be signed by cabinet, it will be immediately politicised and then it will be put through the JSCOT process, and we will have a month to look at it. But we cannot change it, we can vote for it or against it, and that is only the enabling legislation. We cannot change anything. That is simply unacceptable.

In the US, the debate right now is whether they will give President Obama the right and the power that he needs to fast-track it through the US Congress and sign it without parliamentary scrutiny. But at least they are having that debate. That is democracy at work. It is robust. There is no reason why this government should not comply with the Senate's orders to release the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Labor support this, the crossbenches support this. One can claim national interest immunity, one can claim that somehow releasing the text of a secret deal that was negotiated behind closed doors with no parliamentary scrutiny and driven by big corporations and foreign governments but that is going to impact on every aspect of Australian life is not in our national interest. But I cannot think of anything right now that affects our national interest more than a deal like the TPP. Every single aspect of our life will be impacted. There are 29 chapters.

Senator Payne, when I was invited by Andrew Robb to view the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, I read that in the paper. No-one invited me to view the text. Suddenly, that I had been shown the text was in national newspapers. I did think about that offer. As I said today, I have got children and I know you should not reward bad behaviour. Why would I cement the secrecy around this deal and be part of that by signing a four-year confidentiality agreement so that I, as a parliamentarian elected by the Australian people, cannot do my job? I would have a look at these secret texts and then I would get gagged. That is not what I signed up for. My call has always consistently been to release the text, and as a compromise, through the order for the production of documents, it is the final draft text that needs to be shown to parliament and the Australian people before it is signed.

Our treaty process is under review, and I really hope that the Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee will recommend that we need to radically overhaul our treaty process in this country. It has not kept pace with developments in trade deals in the last 30 years. It is over 100 years old. Trade is not what it used to be, if you believe these are trade deals. They are not. They are deregulation agendas, and we are about to enter an even bigger one: the Trade in Services Agreement. As far as these ISDS clauses that give corporations the right to sue us as parliamentarians if we make a law in the public interest and it impacts on their profits, why are we going down this road? It is a shame I could not ask that question to Senator Brandis because the Chief Justice of the High Court, Justice French, said the legal fraternity needs to immediately debate this in this country.

This is not the road we want to go down. They only add risk. They add nothing to investment flows between countries. They are redundant. Thirty years ago, when they were brought in, they had a purpose around misappropriation of assets. They no longer have that purpose. We need to get rid of them. We need to ban them from trade deals. We need to release this text so we can do our job as parliamentarians and act in the public interest, not in the interests of big corporations. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.