Senator ROBERT RAY (3:21 PM) —The questions asked of Senator Parer today do require an answer—maybe not immediately because there were some complex questions asked and we will certainly give Senator Parer time to answer them. It did appear from some of the questions today that he either was confused at the type of questions that went to him, or on a couple of occasions said that he was having some difficulty with his memory in this particular area. We await him going back, going through the records and giving us answers to those particular questions that he could not quite focus on today. But the one thing he consistently said was, `I have complied with the Prime Ministerial guidelines.'

We do not know whether to challenge that totally or not because we do not see the declaration Senator Parer makes to the Prime Minister. What we do see is the declaration that Senator Parer makes to this chamber and to the public as a whole through the parliamentary process of disclosure. That is on the record, not only in its basic text but also in any amendments made over the last four years. We see that. But if Senator Parer has accurately stated all of his interests to the Prime Minister and it is not reflected in his pecuniary interest form in the Senate, then it reflects badly not only on him but even more so on the Secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to whom the Prime Minister himself has said he entrusted the task of checking it all carefully. Surely he would have compared the Prime Ministerial declaration form with the Senate one to see if there were any inconsistencies.

While I am on the Senate one, I still have this problem with Senator Parer: he lists a company, as I understand it, that controls his family trust. I do not think he ever actually goes to the point of declaring his family trust, but that could have been an oversight or a belief that, by putting the organising company in there, that would be good enough in terms of declaration.

We did have a letter go out some time in March 1997, following some controversy, asking people if they owned family trusts that had substantial shareholdings and to put some more detail on the record. Senator Parer has made no such amendment. But the thing that really confused me today was when Senator Parer said, `I think some of these things may have happened more than 10 years ago.' The basic thrust of our questioning, in terms of owning shares that may have a benefit in coalmining, is that this was set up in 1994—just four years ago. I would have thought Senator Parer would have remembered this arrangement for these 16 C class shares. For anyone thinking that 16 shares is not much, there are only just beyond 1,100 shares in totality for a company that values its own assets at $153 million—so we are not talking about peanuts.

Apparently he cannot focus on and remember the allocation of those shares in 1994. I will tell you why I am even a little more shocked by that: guess who chaired the meeting in 1994? Senator Parer. It was more than one meeting—at least three that I know about. He chaired the meeting in which these matters were discussed and decisions were made. So we do want him to go back, check his records and find out.

It is no use Senator Parer coming in here and saying, `I don't own any shares personally.' The fact is that, if the investment company that runs his trust and the trust own 16 shares that are valuable, and they depend on the fortunes of the coal industry and he is the minister directly responsible for export controls on the coal industry, for diesel fuel rebates and all of these other things that impact there, an allegation could then be made of a potential conflict of interest. So as to avoid those allegations the Prime Minister has properly ruled that, if you own shares either directly or by way of a family trust—other than a blind trust, and no-one has argued that this is a blind trust—and if you are going to get what we understand is a very substantial franked dividend out of all this process into the family trust in which you have an interest, and you are making decisions that affect it, the allegation can be there of a potential conflict of interest.

I would never think for a moment that Senator Parer would consciously and directly take a decision affecting the coal industry to directly benefit himself but that is not the point. The whole point is that he should have declared, in some detail in his Senate pecuniary interest form, the details of the holdings in this particular company. So it is no use the other side going on and saying these are absolute smears; these people are accountable. (Time expired)