Senate votes to censure Fiona Nash after she fails to hand over document
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Version 0 of 1. The Senate has censured the assistant health minister, Fiona Nash, after Labor said she misled the chamber and failed to comply with a Senate ruling. The leader of the opposition in the Senate, Penny Wong, moved the motion to censure Nash after she missed the deadline to produce the document her former chief of staff Alastair Furnival wrote outlining how he would avoid conflicts of interest as his wife owned a lobbying company, Australian Public Affairs, which represented junk food clients. Furnival also had a shareholding in his name in the company. Nash was given until 12.45pm on Wednesday to produce the letter but refused to on the grounds it revealed personal information about a former ministerial staffer. Wong moved that the Senate censure Nash “for misleading the Senate, failing to comply with an order for the production of documents, and failing to account for her actions to the Senate”. A censure motion formally condemns Nash but does not force her to resign. The government initially refused to debate the motion and Wong moved to suspend standing orders which passed. Nash was strongly defended by senior colleagues including the Senate leader, Eric Abetz, and the attorney general, George Brandis. The prime minister, Tony Abbott, threw his support behind her in the House of Representatives when the shadow health minister, Catherine King, asked him why he did not sack her. Nash herself spoke during the Senate debate on whether to suspend standing orders but did not speak during the censure debate. “I advise to take part in this debate and will acknowledge some of the comments that have been made by Senator Wong, particularly relating to time and time again she has asked questions. I will say to the Senate the reason I have stood here time and time again was to make sure the facts were placed on the table,” she said. Nash said she had run through the processes put in place to ensure Furnival avoided any conflicts of interest to the Senate and the Senate estimates committees. “I have acted in good faith and I have provided to Senate and Senate estimates committee the facts,” she said. Wong said Nash should resign if the censure motion was passed. “This is not a question of whether Senator Nash is a decent person. It’s a question over whether she is a decent minister,” she said. Wong said Nash had repeatedly misled the chamber, referencing when Nash had to correct the record after telling the Senate Furnival had no connection to APA, and said she had misled the chamber again on Tuesday when she said APA had not represented Mondelēz, the owner of Kraft and Cadbury since September. Nash argued she did not mislead the parliament because she was talking about when APA stopped making representations on behalf of Mondelēz to Nash, the health minister, Peter Dutton, and the health department. Abbott, strongly defended Nash when asked about the issue in question time on Wednesday, saying there was neither “smoke” nor “fire”. King, referred to the Senate’s censure motion and asked: “When will the prime minister act and sack this minister?” Abbott replied: “Ministers who behave inappropriately will be punished, but no one has done anything wrong in the case that this shadow minister is so preoccupied with. Not a single person has done anything wrong in this case, no one, nothing.” The prime minister said Labor “should find a different tree to bark up”. Wong said the opposition did not take the decision to censure Nash lightly and Abbott should have acted before it was forced to act. Abetz said there was no substance to the opposition’s supposed argument against Nash. “They [Labor] might have a suspension of standing orders to fight for Qantas jobs or what about manufacturing jobs? What about plight of drought affected farmers? No, they are in the smear business,” he said. Brandis said one of the most disgraceful things a member of parliament could do was to make an allegation against another human with nothing to back it up and said Wong had been “shrill” in her accusations. “Nothing more could have been done, could have been demanded from those concerned to avoid a conflict of interest,” he said. He said Nash was an “honest, dignified and competent” woman. The motion to censure Nash passed the Senate 37 votes to 31. - with additional reporting from Daniel Hurst |