Senator McKIERNAN(1.00 p.m.) —This afternoon I want to return to Wanneroo, which is a great place to live, and raise a matter that I raised some three weeks ago at the same time in this chamber. At that time I predicted that the pending royal commission interim report into the city of Wanneroo would be a whitewash. I take no joy in saying that my predictions were entirely accurate. Indeed, the commission report itself has a white cover on it.

I am not the only person who has said that it would be a whitewash. I am not the only person who has said, since the report has come down, that it is indeed a whitewash. In the West Australian on Thursday, 5 September, Dr Sandra Egger, an associate professor of law at the University of New South Wales and a member of the New South Wales Police Board, said the same thing as I said, only she used much more explicit language than I used.

I take no joy in the fact because I have seen what has happened with the corruption that has been happening in the city of Wanneroo for a long period. The corruption involves very senior officials and officers of the Liberal Party of Australia, Western Australia Branch. It has also involved Liberal Party members of parliament, some of whom remain under investigation, so I will not dwell on that or interfere with police investigations. We all know that assertions have been made by a number of individuals, some of whom have been members of my party, the Labor Party. Others who have not been members of any political party at all have also made allegations.

We know that Mr Wayne Bradshaw, once a Liberal Party candidate, has just been released from gaol. David King, a councillor from the city of Wanneroo, has also served his time in gaol and there are a few others who remain under investigation. My colleague the Liberal senator from Western Australia came into this place on 9 September and stated:

I say at the outset that the report cleared the names of the Hon. Cheryl Edwardes, the Minister for Family Services in Western Australia, and her husband . . . The findings of Royal Commissioner Davis show the allegations levelled at Mr and Mrs Edwardes to be totally unsubstantiated.

I want to read into the record the findings of Commissioner Davis, as stated in the interim report that was presented to the Western Australian parliament last week. Under 3.6.1 it states:

(a)   There were audio tapes recorded by the IAU on which the voice of Mrs Cheryl Edwardes could be heard. The tapes were erased on or about 5 June 1991.

(b)   No police officer holds or has ever held an audio tape on which could be heard the voice of Mrs Edwardes engaged in a discussion in which a sum of money was discussed in an improper context.

(c)   The fact that Mr McLeod was acquainted with Mr and Mrs Edwardes did not create a conflict of interest nor did it influence Mr McLeod in the conduct of his investigation into Mr Wayde Smith.

Mr Smith is the Liberal MLA for the state seat of Wanneroo. The report goes on:

(d)   The audio tapes recorded by the IAU in the course of its investigation into the affairs of Mr Wayde Smith, together with the monitoring sheets and most of the transcriptions, were properly erased and destroyed by Mr McLeod and members of his staff on 5 June 1991. None of the remaining transcription contains any reference to Mr or Mrs Edwardes.

I find that very strange. If you go back in the report to page 85, under 3.2.3, the report states:

At the request of Mrs Edwardes, and along with other members of the club—

the club being the Little Athletics Club at Greenwood—

Mr McLeod helped Mrs Edwardes with an election campaign which he recalls was in "the early eighties", around 1984. Some members handed out How to Vote cards but, as a police officer, Mr McLeod said he restricted himself to driving elderly voters to the polling booth.

It was very sloppy for the commissioner to record words and dates such as that. Mrs Edwardes stood first for the seat of Kingsley in the year 1988. She was elected to the parliament of Western Australia in early 1989, not the early 1980s, and most certainly and most decidedly not in 1984.

It is interesting to note that, even though Detective McLeod worked for her campaign and was investigating one of her colleagues, a member of parliament and a councillor in the city of Wanneroo, Royal Commissioner Davis dismisses it in the findings that he has brought down. Under 3.2.4, page 86, the commissioner says:

It must be kept in mind that the investigation was not into the conduct or activities of Mr and Mrs Edwardes. The target of the investigation was Mr Smith. Mr and Mrs Edwardes were no more than associates of Mr Smith. Mr McLeod made known to his superior his acquaintance with Mrs Edwardes from the outset. Further, that relationship was tenuous. Mr McLeod said

". . . it didn't concern me. I knew there was a possibility of being in a position to perhaps charge any one of the people involved with an offence of corruption and I would not have shirked from that at all."

I accept Mr McLeod's evidence and conclude that his acquaintance with Mrs Edwardes had no impact on his conduct of the investigation.

That is the case whether or not there is a record of what has gone wrong and where corruption has happened in the local authority where I live in Western Australia.

Mr McLeod admitted before the commission that he destroyed tapes on which it was alleged there were recordings of Mrs Edwardes's voice. The commissioner gave an indication of that under point 3.3.6 on page 95 of the report:

In summary, Mr McLeod said he decided in June 1991 to erase the tapes and destroy the transcripts and monitoring sheets for three reasons. First, because there was nothing on the tapes of an evidentiary value; secondly, to comply with the Listening Devices Act; and thirdly, because some of the material on the tapes and in the transcripts was, in his opinion, politically sensitive. Mr McLeod explained that "nothing of an evidentiary nature" meant to him nothing of a criminal nature. There is no doubt that evidence of the commission of an offence is all that should have been of interest to Mr McLeod. As to the second explanation, it is questionable that the tapes and transcripts should have been destroyed before the operation was terminated in October 1991.

The operation was still on the go, yet this detective destroyed evidence.

The great damage is that the commission has accepted this code of behaviour in Western Australia. The report goes on:

Evidence that may appear innocuous at one point may fit into a pattern when seen in conjunction with evidence obtained later.

I do not accept that the Listening Devices Act required the erasure of the tapes and destruction of the paperwork until the operation was completed. Mr Ayton agreed that there was no statutory requirement to erase the tapes until the operation was completed.

I said in my opening remarks that it would give me no joy to read this. It certainly gives me no joy, because what I see here is the whole make-up of law and order—not only in my state of Western Australia, but around Australia—being completely and utterly discredited by the processes that have gone on at the Davis royal commission in Perth.

I ask honourable senators—indeed, others will do it, even if we don't—to consider for themselves the happenings in the Davis royal commission in Perth and the manner in which the commission has been conducted, and compare that with what is happening in New South Wales in the Wood royal commission. How is the Wood royal commission being conducted and how was and is the Davis royal commission conducted? I think you will find there are very stark differences indeed between them. Dr Egger, whom I quoted earlier in the article from the West Australian on Thursday, September 5, has also drawn attention to this.

There are a whole lot of other matters raised in the interim report which will undoubtedly be dealt with—perhaps in this place, perhaps in another forum. They will not be allowed to rest, or to be pushed under the carpet.

The involvement of Richard Elliott, a special adviser to the Premier of Western Australia, has again been dismissed in this report. He was at a meeting at the instigation of the police commissioner to stop certain investigation that was going on. It is all on the public record and it is contained in the report, but time does not permit me to deal with it.

In relation to the report, I also want to raise another extremely disturbing aspect. As I indicated earlier, I spoke in this place on 21 August on the matter of Wanneroo. My colleague Senator Ellison, a Liberal senator from Western Australia, came in on the adjournment speech on 22 August 1996. He refuted some of the things that I had been reported to have said in the West Australian that same day, 22 August. The matter that I want to highlight and express grave concern about is this quote from Senator Ellison. He said:

There are those in Western Australia who are simply not happy with the interim report of the royal commission which cleared Cheryl Edwardes, the Minister for Family Services, and her husband of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

I ask the Senate to take note of the dates. It was 22 August 1996 when Senator Ellison sat in this place and made that statement. I am quoting directly from the print which comes from the computer, and which is available here in Parliament House.

The interim report of the royal commission into the City of Wanneroo was actually given to the Governor of Western Australia, and it was reported in all our media, because of that, on Friday, 30 August 1996. The report did not actually become public until it was tabled in the Western Australian state parliament on Tuesday, 3 September. I made the assertion that the corruption that has occurred—and that, hopefully, has been stamped out now in Wanneroo because there have been many investigations into it—reached right to the top of the Liberal Party in Western Australia. I hope that what Senator Ellison said, in his admission to the chamber on 22 August 1996, is not an indication that it has reached right to this place, because it brings the whole matter of law and order in my state of Western Australia—indeed, throughout Australia—into complete and utter disrepute when a royal commission's findings could reach the hands of a member of parliament who is not directly connected with the royal commission.

I want to raise another matter in the short time that is available to me. It is also a matter concerning the area in which I live. The issue has been the subject of much concern, not only in Western Australia and Wanneroo, but throughout Australia. The West Australian of 5 June had a report entitled `Residents up in arms over towers'. That was referring to the Gold Coast city in Queensland.

In Western Australia, the most recent proposals to construct towers have been in the areas of Warwick, which is in the federal seat of Cowan, and Mullaloo, which is in the seat of Moore. In both instances, there were proposals to construct towers in extremely close proximity to a school or a child-care centre. Residents, parents and P&Cs are up in arms about this, as the Gold Coast residents were, and a number of public meetings have been held and petitions completed.

I was asked by the Labor candidate for Joondalup, Dianne Guise, who is also president of the Western Australian Council for State Schools Organisations, to distribute and present to the parliament a petition calling on the Senate to:

a) immediately commence a moratorium on the erection of mobile phone towers;

b) institute, as a matter of urgency, a Senate inquiry into health and environmental risks that may be associated with mobile phone towers;

c) enact, in liaison with State and Territory Governments, appropriate legislation that shall prevent the erection of any future mobile phone towers in the immediate vicinity of any school, kindergarten, child care centre, recreation centre or playground.

I was asked to distribute the petition, which I did, and copies of the petition were tabled in this place in June and again today. (Time expired)