Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:11): Mr President, through you: I am astonished, Senator Cameron, by the stupidity of your question. Of course any Australian government will respect the decisions of independent bodies. Any Australian government will do so. And it was you, Senator Cameron—the political party that you represent, when in government, established the Fair Work Commission as an independent arbiter. You established the Fair Work Commission as an independent arbiter, and, when you established it, you said— The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Cameron, a point of order? Senator Cameron: Yes, a point of order on relevance. There is one question, and that is: why did it take over three weeks for the Prime Minister to come clean? The PRESIDENT: The Attorney-General is being directly relevant to the question. Senator BRANDIS: Lest it be lost on you—through you, Mr President—Senator Cameron, it has been the position of the Prime Minister and of every member of the government, and it ought to be your position, quite frankly, to respect the decisions of independent arbiters; particularly, I might say, an independent arbiter which your side of politics when in government established to be an independent arbiter. This, Senator Cameron, is essentially an issue of the rule of law. Whether you agree with the determination or you disagree with the determination, whether you might wish that the determination had been otherwise, the fact remains that this is a determination made by an independent body—established by your side of politics to be an independent body—as a result of a transparent process on the basis of arguments put before it, and that decision by an independent body ought to be respected by everyone. It certainly is by the government. The PRESIDENT: Senator Cameron, a supplementary question.