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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to the Bell Group litigation.

Something is on the nose. Something is seriously on the nose with this government and the Western Australian Liberal government in terms of who said what and who promised what. I want to go back to the question that I asked. I want to remind the Senate that when I asked the Attorney-General that question I quoted Dr Mike Nahan, the Western Australian Treasurer, when he told the Western Australian parliament:

We had a deal with the commonwealth that it would not oppose the Bell act.

I then went on to ask the Attorney-General: did he believe Dr Nahan was misleading the Western Australian parliament? Obviously, someone is not telling the truth. Dr Nahan may have made that up in his own little mind, but clearly that is not the case.

I am not one to defend the most incompetent state government, in this Barnett Liberal government, that Western Australia has ever seen. Let me just remind the Senate why I say that. Since Mr Barnett and the Liberal government took power in Western Australia nearly eight years ago, we have lost our AAA credit rating. We lost that back in 2013. That is why Dr Nahan is not making this up. That is why I believe it. That is why I believe nothing that happens in Western Australia gets past a number of ministers. Minister Cormann said he knew nothing about it, but you see there is another minister in the other place, Mr Porter. Let us not forget that Mr Porter was the Western Australian Treasurer before he had a change of career and wanted to come over here. The Bell issue is nothing strange or new to Mr Porter. I want to know what is going on between this lot, the Western Australian Treasurer and the Western Australian government.

Let's not forget that the Barnett government have unveiled the state's largest ever forecast budget deficit—I am reading a quote from the ABC—of almost $4 billion. When they took over in 2008 there was a very healthy piggybank. Dr Nahan must be getting a bit worried, because he is the one who is getting a lot of the blame—although that is grossly unfair, because Mr Barnett is the Premier and you have to be surrounded by competent minsters. Sadly, in Western Australia that is lacking. The ABC said:

Treasurer Mike Nahan has handed down his third budget, showing the deficit will surge from a forecast $2.96 billion to $3.9 billion in 2016–17.

We know Dr Nahan has been very vocal, absolutely criticising his federal counterparts and naming none other than Senator Cormann, the member for Curtin, Ms Bishop, and Senator Cash—all cabinet ministers. He named not only them but Mr Porter. He has absolutely criticised them—as you would know, Madam Deputy President—because of the lack of guts within the federal Liberal parliamentary team to stand up for Western Australia, which has been the GST cash cow for our nation.

But let's not blame it all on Dr Nahan's view of the incompetent Liberal ministers from Western Australia in the federal cabinet. Let us not forget that there was a certain minister, back in the Court government, who ushered through the GST—could not wait. I never once heard Mr Colin Barnett oppose the introduction of Prime Minister Howard's and Treasurer Costello's GST. They were all for it. I remember the arguments—as you would, too, Madam Deputy President—so I can understand Dr Nahan's discomfort here. I have read—and if anyone wants to tell me it is not true, you have the opportunity—that there was a blazing row, an absolute blue between the Attorney-General and the state Attorney, Mr Mischin, because someone ratted on a deal that someone in this place or in the place over there had done over the phone or over dinner with the Western Australian Liberal government. They flew to Perth and had some secret meetings: 'She'll be right; we'll sort this out.'

There were a few carrots along the way, too. Remember the $490 million—'Shut your mouth; stop whinging about the GST; we'll give you some money from the federal government'? Now, I say, give us more money; give us back the money you stole off us from the GST. I am running out of time, but I am absolutely gobsmacked, because I can understand the pressure on the Western Australian Liberal government, because they are incompetent, but also they have been made a promise and someone has ratted on the deal, and we need to find out who that is. (Time expired)

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It must be close to Christmas, because there is pantomime being performed by those opposite. And as with all Christmas pantomimes, there are colourful characters—like Senator Sterle—cringe-worthy overacting, finger-pointing, confected outrage and audience attention seeking, and no more so than today. Today the opposition has once again, in a week in which important business of government is actually being done, staged a second-rate sideshow on an issue that is as irrelevant as it is opportunistic. The issue of this imagined arrangement between the Commonwealth and the Western Australian government in the Bell Group liquidation is just that: it is a sideshow, it is a witch-hunt and it is aimed squarely at a senator who clearly gets under the skin of the opposition.

The Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, made a comprehensive statement on the Bell Group issue yesterday, and Senator Wong promised that the ALP would carefully consider the Attorney-General's statement. Well, it is painfully apparent that they have not done so. Senator Brandis told this chamber yesterday that there was never an arrangement between the federal government and Western Australia over how to bring the long-running legal dispute to a close or how to carve up $1.8 billion in disputed proceeds. The Bell Group litigation is infamous for its length and its costs. It is the most complex and costly corporate winding up in Australian history. So far it has involved some 30 separate legal proceedings in four countries as well as proceedings in Australia, in the High Court, the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

As he unambiguously explained to this chamber, the Attorney-General accepted the legal advice of former Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson that the Commonwealth should challenge the Western Australian government over its wind-up of the Bell Group. Every decision that the Attorney-General made on the matter did protect the interests of the Commonwealth, by supporting the decision of the ATO to intervene in the matter and deciding to accept Mr Gleeson's advice that the Commonwealth of Australia should also intervene in the matter. There was never an agreement between the Attorney-General and his WA Counterpart, Mr Mischin, which was acknowledged.

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

How do you know?

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had a look at the correspondence, Senator. That is how I know. The correspondence between former Treasurer Joe Hockey and his WA counterpart, Dr Nahan, clearly does not constitute that an agreement or understanding was arrived at between the Commonwealth and the Western Australian government. Indeed, despite Labor finger-pointing, Dr Nahan has not in fact cited any specific agreement. The Labor Party speak of an arrangement, but where is this arrangement supposed to be recorded? Is there a written agreement between the Commonwealth and Western Australia? No, there is not. Are there perhaps public statements by Mr Hockey or any other Commonwealth minister? No, not that the Labor Party can point to. And what about in the correspondence? No, there is nothing there either. There was no deal. There was no arrangement. There was no understanding.

The Attorney-General said in his statement that he took countercompeting arguments, that he listened to and tested settlement proposals and then approved or instructed the lodgement of the appropriate documents within the deadline and approved the making of submissions completely in accordance with the legal advice he had received. It is clear from the Attorney-General's statement that he acted properly at all times. Everything was done when it needed to be done and in accordance with advice as well as established legal processes. The claim that there was an agreement between the Commonwealth and WA is wrong. The claim that the Attorney-General ignored the Constitution and instructed the Solicitor-General to do so is wrong. In short, just about everything the Labor Party and the Greens have said on this issue is wrong.

What skulduggery by the opposition. Mark Dreyfus and Bill Shorten have significantly overreached and acted recklessly in their assertions and accusations, and in this chamber Labor have picked up their union issued and approved pitchforks and continued this witch-hunt. Opportunism abounds here. Accuracy is forsaken for headlines. This is an opposition that would rather be quotable than be credible. Protocol is subordinated to steal headlines in a week that is not going your way. This government is delivering. (Time expired)

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hume, may I remind you, when you refer to members of the other place, to use their correct titles.

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

Let's take some of the heat out of this and reflect on what we did actually hear today and what we did hear in Senator Brandis's statement. Senator Brandis had notice this morning, in Laura Tingle's article in The Financial Review, of the most critical question that, once again, he has failed to answer. The question was: did the Attorney-General prevent, discourage or inhibit attempts to challenge a Western Australian bill that would have favoured Western Australia over federal taxpayers to the tune of $300 million? Senator Hume asks, 'What evidence do we have of that?' Well, the evidence we have is what the Western Australian government tells us; that is what the evidence is. But more than that, Senator Hume, in trying to support her argument about a pantomime, then goes on to form a very solid opinion herself—although she is talking about what is truth—over and above even what the Attorney-General claims. The Attorney-General told us today that he formed an opinion that there was no deal. This fine legal mind will tell us that he formed that opinion—

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

Deputy President, I have a point of order. Because this potentially matters, this is not a pedantic objection. I told the Senate that I was of the opinion that there was no deal. That is my opinion. That is not what Senator Collins just said.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, I believe that is debating point, thank you. Senator Collins, please continue.

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

That was, indeed, exactly what I said. Now I am going to address the issue of how he formed that opinion. This, as I said, fine legal mind formed that opinion in ignorance. He did not even bother talking to his own office about what contacts they had in this matter. He did not bother talking to Mr Hockey, who, as he has informed us, was the representative of the Commonwealth upon whom the Western Australian government members relied in forming their opinion. Sure, as he tells us, different people can come out of exchanges with different opinions, but you do not then go on to conclude an opinion of your own in ignorance.

We have all heard about convenient memories and the 'I do not recall' defence. Senator Sinodinos had it down to fine art. The 'I do not recall' defence was used so many times that the stature of the argument became very questionable. In this case, we do not have a convenient memory; we have convenient ignorance from Senator Brandis on behalf of the Commonwealth. What I took out of yesterday's statement, listening carefully to Senator Brandis as he delivered it, was that he had been sprung by the Solicitor-General in attempting to prevent the Commonwealth becoming involved in the matter and nowhere has he been able to refute that that was the case.

So we will continue for days on end to get senior commentators and others continuing to ask these questions. Remember how Senator Brandis started this with, 'No comment.' If these issues had not been canvassed in the Senate, we would be still be on the, 'no comment' response. 'The Attorney-General does not respond to questions around matters in which the Commonwealth has been engaged'—that would be his answer. But of course the heat and the temperature rose after his initial response. Pressure came from a number of areas that he did need to at least try to present what he could argue was a comprehensive statement. But we all know, despite its length, despite the grand words and the grand arguments that Senator Brandis sought to put across, there are just so many unanswered questions. The questions that Senator Watt asked today were not answered. There are so many things that Senator Brandis remains ignorant of or refuses to help us understand. Indeed, he refuses to refute the suspicion that he did seek to prevent the Commonwealth's involvement in this matter.

This is no pantomime. Sure, it has attracted humour. I was today sent a reference from the SBS about how Senator Brandis is now ordering more buses because his behaviour here has become a farce. The length of the scandals and the gaffes that reside around this Attorney-General just continue to grow. The SBS humour was that he had to order a fleet of buses so that he could throw more— (Time expired)

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a compelling piece of evidence was just presented to the Senate by Senator Collins! SBS Comedy thinks that this is a matter of seriousness and one worthy of attention. Well, there we have it. I think in the legal business this is what you call a 'resting your case', Senator Collins, and I am sure that the jury will go away and consider very seriously your compelling arguments!

Here we go again: Labor senators are deciding to finish the year in much the same way that they have conducted themselves throughout it, and that is pursuing an attack of personal smear and innuendo and criticism of Senator Brandis instead of pursuing matters of great weighty policy that are of concern to the Australian people. In every question in question time yesterday, in every question in question time today, in the take note after question time yesterday, in the take note after question time today, in the MPI yesterday and again in the MPI today we were advised that Labor senators want to spend hours and hours of the Senate's time on this issue on which they have no evidence to support their claims. This is not what the Australian people sent us here to do. This is not what they expect we do here on their behalf. They expect us to think about, to discuss, to debate, to even argue about the things that affect their lives and about the things that have a tangible impact on the way they live their lives—the great policy issues of today. They do not expect us to agree and they do not expect us to get along, but they do expect us to focus on the things that actually matter to them. We have heard in other debates that if something does not stop them at a barbecue then it should not be dealt with. Well, I would be very surprised if there is a barbecue anywhere in Australia that has been stopped to discuss this issue.

I have a prediction to make and that is that this attack will peter out just like the previous attack along these lines has petered out. There will be nothing to show of it after hours of the Senate's time has been wasted. The most famous resident of Higgins, the member for Isaacs, Mr Dreyfus, has gone off half-cocked yet again. He has prematurely called for the resignation of Senator Brandis. Barely waiting for the ink to dry on the newspaper reports in The West Australian, barely waiting for any evidence at all, he has leapt to the most extreme conclusion and the most outrageous option and called for the resignation of Senator Brandis.

Not coming from Western Australia and also being a young person not intimately familiar with the WA Inc era, I found it very interesting to listen to some of the history of this issue that we have heard on this debate in the chamber.

I commend Senator Brandis for his very detailed and lengthy statement. I particularly want to draw the attention of senators to the introduction he made to that statement, because I think the history of this issue is illustrative. He said:

Between 1991 and 1993 – a quarter of a century ago – members of the Bell Group of companies, a diversified conglomerate based in Western Australia, went into liquidation. That liquidation is still ongoing, and nowhere near being completed. It is the most complicated and costly corporate winding-up in Australian history. So far, it has involved some 30 separate legal proceedings, in four countries. In Australia, it has involved complex proceedings in the High Court, the Federal Court and the Supreme Court of Western Australia. The hearing of the main case alone, in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, lasted for 404 days and resulted in a judgment by Justice Owen running to 2,643-pages. There is no reliable figure as to the costs so far incurred in the winding-up, in professional fees paid to insolvency practitioners, solicitors, barristers and others. However everybody agrees that the costs so far are in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars. And, of course, every dollar spent on professional fees and other costs, is a dollar that the creditors will never see.

There are many other interesting things in Senator Brandis's statement, which I commend to the Senate. But I also want to highlight very briefly in my remaining time the contribution of another Senate colleague of mine, Senator Back, who also went to the history of this issue. He has foreshadowed that, helpfully, he will be returning to this issue, given that it is going to be a topic of the MPI later on today. I look forward to hearing what he has to say, because he lent some very interesting perspective to this issue as someone who lived in Western Australia in that time.

I commend particularly the comments he made about the government that was in charge at the time of the Bell Group liquidation, about the events leading up to that liquidation, about the involvement of Mr Brian Burke and his government in that liquidation and about the very exorbitant costs that the people of Western Australia have had to bear as a result of the handling of it by Mr Burke and by members of his government. I look forward to his contribution later, although I also hope that at some point the Senate will move on from these matters to more weighty ones.

Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It intrigues me that Senator Brandis, in his comments on Monday, said that this was an area of law that he had specialised in. We know that the history of this Bell affair, if I can refer to it in that way, has dragged on for some 20 or so years—25 years, I think Senator Brandis mentioned today. As a lawyer specialising in this field of insolvency he appeared only to become really interested in how the resolution to the insolvency was going to take place. It was particularly on the visit by now Minister Porter that his interest seemed to have been sparked, not necessarily out of his profession. The question of the Commonwealth potentially losing out on revenue in the order of $300 million seemed not to have sparked his interest.

He also mentioned today—and I am not sure whether this was a matter that was a rearrangement of the facts or not—that his personal involvement first began on 3 March, although his office had been dealing with this matter prior to that time. I think he said today that they had been involved since January 2016, which is some two months earlier than the period he highlighted in his statement. It is curious that as an experienced minister he seems to have been comfortable with the fact that his staff did not pass on to him any information on this major legal and financial issue for months. It just intrigues me, whether this is a genuine case of some kind of Chinese Wall being erected between the minister and the staff so that later on, if the matter had gone the way it appears there was some intent to make it eventuate in the courts, the minister could say clearly that he did not know.

Surely, it seems that it is a clear principle that if your ministerial staff are informed of an issue then you are deemed to know about that issue. I note that the minister said that he would check on the paper trail in answer to questions from Senator Wong today. So maybe that matter could also be taken up, as to the dates.

I listened carefully to his explanation of Dr Nahan's statement, and I can see and understand why we in Western Australia become very frustrated with the way we are treated by the Commonwealth—particularly if the Western Australian ministers who were engaged in the discussion at the time took a different view. They took the view that there had been an agreement, as opposed to the view that we were told here in this chamber—that there was no agreement. Either they were very moronic or stupid, or incapable of understanding what was going on—and I doubt that is the case, given the competencies of the particular ministers involved. It is precisely this kind of attitude towards Western Australia that causes the parties that may normally be— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.