Page 1717 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES: No, I am not. I did not say that. Listen to what I am saying.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Connolly, resume your seat. That is absolutely ridiculous.
MR HUMPHRIES: I suggest that Mr Connolly listen to what I am saying. I was going to say, Mr Connolly, before you sprang to your feet in outrageous defence of your Labor colleague, for whom there has not been defence elsewhere tonight, that had Senator Tate made those remarks outside the Senate chamber, where he did not enjoy privilege, he would certainly have committed a criminal offence.
Mr Connolly: He made the remarks in a press statement.
MR HUMPHRIES: In that case, he committed a contempt of court and would have been liable and is liable in those circumstances for a charge of contempt of court. That, Mr Connolly, is a criminal offence, is it not? Mr Connolly goes quiet in the circumstances. (Extension of time granted)
As I have indicated, the standard being applied by members opposite is simply not consistent with that being applied by their colleagues elsewhere in Australia. I think Senator Tate's offence - I use "offence" in a loose sense - - -
Mr Connolly: Never charged; never convicted. You're the only person who is saying it is a criminal offence, under parliamentary privilege.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am sorry, but I think that the evidence is quite clear that what Senator Tate did constituted an offence which is punishable as a crime. Contempt of court is a criminal offence, unless the law has changed since I practised it. What is more, the consequences of what Senator Tate did were serious, and they bore down on his responsibilities as a Minister of the Federal Government. His remarks led to the aborting of a trial of a person, I believe in Sydney - - -
Mr Duby: A drug baron.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, a so-called drug baron, and they led to a new trial having to be ordered. It was a very serious consequence of Senator Tate's actions. Nothing of that magnitude can be said to flow from anything that Mr Duby has done, and I think members opposite really ought to ask themselves whether they are applying double standards in these circumstances. There was the case of Mr Keating, the man responsible for the administration of tax laws in this country, who handed in an extremely late tax return. Again, I think Labor members gloss over, with great aplomb, the seriousness of those things but do not seem to realise that colleagues of theirs and ours in other parliaments in Australia simply do not see things the way they see them.
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