Committee Of Privilege Referral
Speeches
Date: 12 August 2009
On behalf of the government I move the notice of motion standing in my name:
That the following matters be referred to the Committee of Privileges for inquiry and report:
In relation to the hearing of the Economics Legislation Committee on 19 June 2009 on the OzCar program:
and, if so, whether any contempt was committed in that regard.
These are very important matters for the Senate and we think that they ought to be dealt with seriously and appropriately by the Senate. As you know, Mr Deputy President, the term 'parliamentary privilege' refers to two significant aspects of the law relating to parliament: the privileges or immunities of the houses of parliament and the powers of the houses to protect the integrity of their processes. These immunities and powers are very extensive and are deeply ingrained in the history of free institutions such as the Australian parliament.
The law of parliamentary privilege is particularly important for the Senate because it is the foundation of the Senate's ability to perform its legislative function with the appropriate degree of independence of the House of Representatives and of the executive government which controls that House. Parliamentary privilege exists for the purpose of enabling the Senate effectively to carry out its functions, which are to inquire, to debate and to legislate. The Privileges Committee, as we know it, was created in 1965 to enable the Senate to deal speedily with any questions of privilege. A reference to the Privileges Committee of the matters relating to the hearing of the Economics Legislation Committee on 19 June 2009 at which witnesses were examined about the OzCar program, is the appropriate and proper approach to ascertain all of the facts in this matter.
There are two main grounds that form the basis of the government's motion, and I have just outlined those: whether there was false or misleading evidence given and whether there was any improper interference with the hearing-and, of course, as a result, whether any contempt was committed. The Privileges Committee is the forum to resolve these issues and to determine whether any contempt of Senate procedures was committed. It is a process we have had since 1965. It is a process that has served us well. The Senate Privileges Committee has always taken extremely seriously any suggestion that misleading evidence has been given to a committee. The Privileges Committee has made it clear that any evidence which leaves a committee with a misleading impression of the facts or circumstances could be seen as misleading evidence. As I have outlined, the government believes that these circumstances raise the issues of whether false or misleading evidence was given to the committee and whether or not the Senate, the committee and the public were misled.
I refer the Senate to paragraph 12 of the Senate privileges resolution No. 6 setting out matters which may constitute contempt. It provides:
A witness before the Senate or a committee shall not:
(c) give any evidence which the witness knows to be false or misleading in a material particular, or which the witness does not believe on reasonable grounds to be true or substantially true in every material particular.
As noted by the President in ruling, the Senate and the Privileges Committee treat very seriously any suggestion of misleading evidence having been given to a committee. The Senate has a history of only referring serious matters to the Privileges Committee. The parliament and the Australian public expect us to protect the integrity of the Senate committee process. As I say, this government takes that function very seriously.
I do not intend to go through the detail of the OzCar affair. It has been canvassed at great breadth and length in the media and in political debate in this country. I think it is fair to say, though, that by any assessment it has been an extraordinary affair. I think in the history of the Australian parliament it will be seen as one of the most extraordinary events that have occurred inside the parliament. It is not a question now of political claim and counterclaim. It is not a question of political point-scoring. We have now a finding from the Australia Federal Police, a finding of fact that an email that was presented in evidence or used in evidence at that committee was false. There is no question about that. The AFP have found that email to be false. Senator Abetz and Mr Turnbull from the House of Representatives have confirmed meeting and discussing questions and evidence with Mr Grech, the senior public servant. We know that some of that evidence relating to the email was false. We know that the evidence was led in order to incriminate the Prime Minister of this country and bring about his resignation as Prime Minister.
Nothing could be more serious. Nothing could be more serious than the use of false evidence in a Senate committee hearing to try and bring down the Prime Minister of the country. This is not an everyday occurrence; this is very serious. I think it is of very serious concern to all reasonable parliamentarians and all reasonable members of the Australian public. What could be more serious as an issue of abuse of Senate privilege than this? I cannot think of one. There is nothing that has been brought to my attention in the history of the question of privilege in the Senate that rates anywhere near the scale of this incident.
I acknowledge Senator Abetz's apology, as I did yesterday. I think it was appropriate that he made that. But it does not test his claims, nor does it address the key issues about whether there was a breach of privilege. So while I think it was important that he did it, it does not actually take us further in respect of the issue of privilege.
The Labor Party has had, I think, strong bona fides in this matter. Back in the last session of parliament Senator Ludwig sought to move a motion to have this matter referred to the Privileges Committee. That motion was defeated on the votes of the coalition and Senator Fielding. So an attempt to deal with this properly some months ago was defeated. The government think it important that we try again, and that is why this motion is before us today. I point out that on that occasion, around the same time, Senator Heffernan sought to refer a matter of privilege to the committee. That was a motion by Senator Heffernan that went to whether any action had been taken against Mr Grech as a result of his testimony. His concern was that Mr Grech could be discriminated against because of his testimony. Labor supported that reference. Labor took the view that, while we did not necessarily agree with the claims made by Senator Heffernan, it was an important question of privilege and on principle it ought to be referred. So we voted for it. But the opposition and Senator Fielding chose to vote against the reference that we made of the broader issues in the OzCar affair. I think, therefore, our bona fides on this matter are very strong.
I think the bona fides of the Liberal-National Party, the coalition, are at question here. Last week Senator Minchin said on behalf of the opposition that, provided the terms of reference were not highly charged politically and it was not a witch-hunt, the opposition was likely to support the reference. He has stated publicly now that the Liberal Party will not. I do not know why they have changed their position, because quite clearly the terms of reference proposed today are appropriate. They are not partisan. They were drafted by the Clerk to give a proper reference of the matters at stake without any political innuendo or claims against anybody. I think it is important that the Liberal Party change its position and support the motion today, otherwise their bona fides will be in question because they effectively have to argue that this is not a serious matter, that what occurred in the Senate committee hearing was not a serious matter of privilege. I do not think you can argue that case with any credibility at all.
I want to turn to the claim that this has been a witch-hunt. I am not sure that the opposition made that claim when one of their own, Senator Heffernan, moved his reference to the Privileges Committee regarding Mr Grech. It is certainly not a claim we made at the time. In dealing with this attempt to say that this is all a political move, I make a couple of key points. First of all, the Privileges Committee has a proud history in this parliament. I have served on it myself. I have served on it with a number of opposition senators. It has always operated in a bipartisan manner. Senators have operated with goodwill and with proper detachment from their political interests. The history of the Privileges Committee, under the chairmanship of both sides of politics, is a very proud one. The people who have served on that committee have taken their duties and responsibilities very seriously. When I was serving on the committee, I was certainly impressed by senators from all sides in the application of their responsibilities. The history of the Privileges Committee means that people refer matters to it with some confidence that the Privileges Committee will act appropriately and with proper judgment.
The second point is that it would be a very unusual occurrence for me to conduct a witch-hunt by referring a matter to a committee chaired by a member of the opposition. The chair of the committee to which I seek to refer this matter today is Senator George Brandis, a member of the frontbench of the coalition. Allegedly, I am conducting a witch-hunt by asking Senator Brandis, as chair of the committee, to inquire into these very serious matters. That is clearly a nonsense.
Senator Parry -It has a Labor majority.
Senator CHRIS EVANS -There is a Labor majority, Senator, as has always been the case-a government majority and a non-government chair, but the chair of the committee is a frontbench opposition senator. So the charge is that somehow, by inviting or requiring Senator Brandis to head an investigation into this matter, we are conducting a witch-hunt. What arrant nonsense. What we are doing is asking the appropriate body to inquire into a very serious matter, a matter considered serious by all in this parliament. This really does serve as a challenge to the Liberal and National parties. There is a question as to whether they can detach themselves from what they see as their partisan political interests, or their fear of what might occur after a proper examination of this issue, and act responsibly as senators and members of this parliament. You cannot deny the seriousness of this issue. You cannot deny that there are questions of privilege at stake.
We have had the most extraordinary event of misleading evidence, of reference to false documents, of meetings between senior public servants and senators participating in the inquiry, where the nature of the questions and the answers were discussed. Whoever is at fault, whoever initiated these things is a question for the Privileges Committee to examine. I make no comment on it, but we have serious disagreement between key players and we have proof that at the heart of these allegations is a false document. We know that this was designed to bring down a Prime Minister of this country. This is as serious as it gets, in my view, in terms of abuse of Senate practice and procedures. It is absolutely a matter that ought to go to the Privileges Committee. If the opposition thought that Senator Heffernan's reference-one which went to whether or not there had been any discrimination against Mr Grech following his evidence-was serious enough to be supported, I ask them: how can they now say that these matters are not serious enough? They cannot, because clearly they are serious enough. I urge them to take the responsible action and support this motion.
I thank the Greens and Senator Xenophon for their support when we attempted to do this before. They rightly saw that this is an issue the Senate has to deal with. In the last couple of days I have spoken to Senator Fielding about this-he did not vote with us on the previous occasion. I would urge him to do so on this occasion. While there was a lot of evidence about at the time, there is no doubt that more evidence has come to light and there has been more focus on the issues at stake. Since the Auditor-General's report, both Mr Turnbull and Mr Abetz have made statements which clarify some of the issues and present their side of the story. Despite his position last time, I would urge Senator Fielding to support this motion.
I have indicated that I will not speak at length to the next motion, which Senator Fielding proposes. The government will not be supporting Senator Fielding's motion. We think an attempt to link Senator Conroy and some incident that occurred back in October 2008 is ridiculous. An incident 10 months ago, on which no action and no commentary has been made, is now sought to be rolled in to a serious reference on matters relating to the OzCar inquiry. Clearly, in my view, it is a nonsense. If concerns existed about what occurred at the economics committee between Senator Conroy and Senator Cameron, people had 10 months to raise concerns, yet no concerns were raised-because at the heart of the suggestion about Senator Conroy's action is a suggestion that he might have been organising a dorothy dixer. If we are going to take action against everyone who participates in the organisation or delivery of an answer to a dorothy dixer in this parliament, there will not be many of us left. It is clearly ridiculous. It is clearly of a very different order to suggest that somehow these events are linked or that the behaviour or issues at stake are similar-that is clearly not right.
We had an incident today in the Senate where Senator Cormann wanted a serious answer to a serious question, where he gave notice to Senator Ludwig, representing the Minister for Health and Ageing-perfectly appropriate. Senators on the crossbenches have done it to ensure that the minister is aware of the issues that they want an answer to. To suggest that somehow what we colloquially refer to as the asking of a dorothy dixer is in some way comparable or related to the OzCar matter and the seriousness of the issues at stake is just unable to be supported. There is no logic to that. I will not allow Senator Conroy's name to be besmirched by having him dragged into this.
What the Senate has before it now is a proper, serious reference going to the protection of Senate privilege. We are asking, like we did with Senator Heffernan's motion, that we refer matters of concern that arose out of that economics committee hearing to the Privileges Committee to inquire into, to resolve what occurred and to decide whether any action is required by the Senate. That is normal, appropriate, proper Senate practice. That is what I seek to do today and that is what I seek the Senate's support on. I think to do otherwise effectively ends the practice of upholding Senate privilege in this country. If we do not refer this matter, if we do not take this matter seriously, where will the high bar be? What will you have to do to warrant a reference to the Privileges Committee? What could possibly be more serious, short of some form of violence or murder?
This is a matter where there was proof of false documentation being used. There was an attempt to bring down the Prime Minister of the country. We know there were discussions with witnesses about the evidence they were to lead and the answers they were to give and organisation around those matters. That is as serious as it gets, in my view, and it is a matter that the Senate ought to deal with. I am sure the Senate Privileges Committee, under Senator Brandis, can deal with that properly, adequately and with professionalism. I would hope that the Liberal Party would support him in doing that. I know the process will not work if the Liberal Party sets out to destroy it. This Senate works on cooperation. This Senate works on proper behaviour by all senators. We know how easy it is to overturn the processes of the Senate. One senator can do it, let alone a whole opposition. So this is, in my view, an issue that goes to the leadership of the Liberal and National parties. Whether this is passed not, the position they take reflects, I think, a very partisan view that they will regret.
What we should see is the appropriate reference of this to the Privileges Committee, an upholding of the practices and processes which we have all relied on and will continue to need to rely on if we are to function appropriately. I urge the opposition to support the motion and to commit themselves to an appropriate inquiry, led by their own Senator Brandis, which will look at these issues seriously and report back to the Senate. I hope the Privileges Committee can do its work in the same professional manner that it always has done. I urge the Senate to support the motion.
