Senator KITCHING (Victoria) (15:05): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) and the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to the conduct of a minister. The most generous thing I think we can say about the member for Hume, Mr Taylor, is that he is the unluckiest MP in the parliament. The answers today by Senators Cormann and Birmingham failed not only to address what has now become a daily display of failure by Liberal-National Party ministers to abide by the Prime Minister's own ministerial standards—remember, these are the ministerial standards the Prime Minister himself enforces—but also to reassure the public that they are acting in a way that the public would expect of their elected representatives. Paragraph 7.1 of these standards states: Ministers must accept that it is for the Prime Minister to decide whether and when a Minister should stand aside if that Minister becomes the subject of an official investigation of alleged illegal or improper conduct. It's the Prime Minister's decision, and what's he done? As Senator Birmingham said in response to a question: 'Zip, zilch, nothing'. He has done nothing. Today the New South Wales Police Force confirmed that it had launched Strike Force Garrad to investigate the minister's involvement in the use of a false document. This morning in my contribution on the Orwellian named ensuring integrity bill, I was idly looking up the meaning of 'garrad' in the Urban Dictionary. I'm mindful of the President's ruling on functions in breweries, but if you look up the Urban Dictionary, you'll see that it says that 'garrad' means the dumbest—it doesn't use the word 'person'—person in the whole land, and maybe the New South Wales police have a sense of humour and that's why they've called it Strike Force Garrad. So when will the minister be stepped down? Senator Scarr: Maybe you should respect the investigation. Senator KITCHING: I'll take the interjection. We will take this investigation very seriously because what we have seen is that we have a minister who is repeatedly—repeatedly—breaching ministerial standards. Why do we know that? Because in the former term of this government we actually had a minister who did stand aside when there was a police investigation. Senator Sinodinos, who is about to become the Australian Ambassador to the United States, stood aside. They acted properly. They acted in a way that was consistent with the Statement of Ministerial Standards. Instead, what we have now is a minister, the member for Hume, who is under investigation. There is a police investigation ongoing. It doesn't matter why that happened. There is a police investigation happening. Senator Scarr: Initiated by a political opponent. Senator KITCHING: And again I'll take that interjection. It does not matter how something comes to light. If the police choose to investigate it, the police choose to investigate it. In fact, what we have seen in this is the police investigating it despite the fact that the New South Wales police commissioner has now been improperly involved in the Prime Minister's friendship that they have. I bet the Prime Minister's superhappy that the New South Wales police commissioner, Commissioner Fuller, decided to give that interview on 2GB in 2018 saying of the then Treasurer: 'He's such a good friend. He takes out my rubbish bins.' And what the Prime Minister, the member for Cook, has done is actually, whether it was inadvertent or not, made it more difficult for the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police, a public servant. He has made it more difficult for that man to do his job without the question of bias being raised. That is an utterly irresponsible action. Senator Scarr: Just like your questions. Senator KITCHING: Well, someone has to keep you people to account, given that you are incapable of implementing your own Statement of Ministerial Standards. It is breathtakingly inappropriate that the Prime Minister would intervene in an ongoing police investigation by leveraging an old friendship in order to influence this. If the Prime Minister did not have sufficient judgement to not make the call, surely there are enough people in the Prime Minister's own office who might have thrown themselves in front of the phone to say: 'No. Don't make the phone call. It's inappropriate.' But, no, we shouldn't worry about it because—don't worry everyone—it was just an extremely short phone call. (Time expired)