Senator FAULKNER (12:53 PM) —Last week I made a speech in this chamber in relation to party political research—opinion polling and the like—and I mentioned an individual by the name of Mr Mark Textor. I was, of course, criticised by the coalition government for raising this issue. The opposition was attacked for not concentrating on policy issues or developing alternatives to this government's program.

The truth is that Labor did have a comprehensive plan during the election campaign with an emphasis on job creation and tax reform that delivers fairness through tax credits and targeted tax cuts for lower and middle income earners. It was a plan that formed the basis of the best election result for an opposition party after one term since Federation; a bigger swing than the coalition was able to secure after 13 years in opposition. But, as we remain in opposition, Labor will continue to do its job. We will continue to scrutinise the government and the government's behaviour at every turn. We will not allow the government to rort its way back into office a second time.

In last Thursday's question time in the House of Representatives, Mr Howard responded to a question in relation to Mr Textor, and he said:

I certainly do know Mr Textor, and I think you know him as well. Mr Textor has been a very competent and a very effective pollster for the Liberal Party of Australia. He is also, like any other person in that area, entitled to do other work.

I ask: does the Prime Minister's approval of `other work' extend to a contract with the Northern Territory government to unethically conduct research for the CLP while employed at the Liberal Party of Australia National Secretariat? Does the Prime Minister approve of the actions of the Country-Liberal Party, who used Mark Textor as their exclusive pollster for the 1994 election, funded his research from taxpayers' money and then claimed in their return to the AEC that they spent nothing on polling?

Does the Prime Minister have no concerns that Mark Textor conducted his activities from his desk at Menzies House under the nose of Andrew Robb? Does the Prime Minister have no qualms at all about his private pollster receiving $740 a day from the Northern Territory government for the exclusive use of the CLP in an election campaign? Isn't it of any concern that Mr Textor, throughout his research, was obsessive about using the race card for maximum effect, including the unprecedented use of push polling to inflame racial tension in the Territory? Is it `effective' and `competent' to use polling techniques imported from Republican Party race based campaigns? Does the Prime Minister also contend that Mark Textor was entitled to do other work when that involved, on two separate occasions, employment on the shadow ministerial staff of Dr Michael Wooldridge during the time he was contracted by the Northern Territory government?

Records showed that Mark Textor was employed by Dr Wooldridge from 26 July 1993 to 27 August 1993, and again from 14 March 1994 to 8 May 1994 at private secretary grade 1 level. On both occasions this coincided with his employment by the Northern Territory government. Senator Ray has lodged a number of questions on notice to ascertain whether this practice of subsidising Mark Textor through his employment by shadow ministers is limited to Dr Wooldridge. This is probably just brazen triple-dipping. He was being paid by the Commonwealth taxpayer, through Dr Wooldridge, and by the Northern Territory taxpayer, through the 1993 Northern Territory government contract. We assume he was also on the Liberal Party payroll.

If Mark Textor is as competent as the Prime Minister says he is, then his polling for the Bulletin tells a remarkable story. According to his research, Labor's primary vote surged seven points over the campaign period, while the coalition's declined by four points. If Mark Textor is as accurate as the Liberals claim, then it is a testament to a remarkably effective ALP campaign. Equally, it points to a humiliating performance by the Liberals—a campaign for which Mark Textor himself provided the research. Equally curious is the decision of the Bulletin to employ him just for the election period. Did the financial subsidy ensure discount rates for research for the Liberal Party of Australia? If it did, will this subsidy or donation from Australian Consolidated Press be fully disclosed to the AEC? We await that with interest and in anticipation.

The Prime Minister went on to say this of the government's pre-election market research program:

Having sort of prepared the ground, I say to those who sit opposite that I am advised that total propriety has been observed by government in relation to those matters.

The Prime Minister has got to know something that the community does not. Many government departments have not provided the market research information requested of them by the Senate. How can we be assured of `total propriety in relation to those matters' in the absence of total disclosure? Who actually in fact advised the Prime Minister of this so-called total propriety?

When the documents in relation to the Northern Territory rorts were tabled last Thursday, Shane Stone resorted to malicious attacks on one of the participants. Let me assure the Senate that all of our accusations of corruption are based entirely on primary documents, not on the interpretation of any individual. No interpretation is needed because the documents are clear and point specifically to unethical and corrupt practices by the CLP, practices devised and implemented by Mark Textor, Shane Stone, Ron Klein and Andrew Coward.

Senator Crossin last week pointed to aspects of political research carried out by the CLP, by Mr Klein and Mr Textor, and how racial tensions in the Northern Territory were exploited by the CLP. She revealed how the Aboriginal population that makes up close to a third of the territory's population was excluded from CLP focus groups, and she quoted from the Klein research findings that:

Handled correctly, we feel the Aboriginal issue could ensure the re-election of the CLP.

She reminded this chamber of the notorious push polling technique masterminded by Mr Textor where participants were asked if they would vote for Labor if they knew they were planning to establish two sets of laws, one for blacks and one for whites. In a letter quoted by Senator Crossin, Mark Textor used the two sets of laws concept as an example of the usefulness of focus group research in adding flavour to campaigns—the bitter flavour of racism.

Of course, Mark Textor has some form in relation to low grade, wedge politics. All senators will be aware of the public outcry at the Liberal Party's polling techniques used in the March 1995 by-election for the federal seat of Canberra. In that campaign the Liberal Party's pollsters used push polling techniques developed by right wing Republicans in the United States to test voter perceptions about the Labor Party candidate. In particular, electors were asked whether their voting intention would change if they were told, for instance, that Ms Robinson had supported abortion at up to nine months of pregnancy and that she had defended violent demonstrations against defence industries. These allegations were absolutely false and were known by the pollsters and by the Liberal Party to be complete fabrications.

Push polling as defined by the American Association for Public Opinion Research is, and I quote:

. . . a tele-marketing technique in which telephone calls are used to canvass potential voters, feeding them false and misleading information about a candidate under the pretence of taking a poll to see how this "information" affects voter preferences.

At the time the then federal director of the Liberal Party, Mr Andrew Robb, denied that push polling had been used or that there was `any intention of smearing or defaming', to use his words.

I have now been informed by the national secretariat of the Australian Labor Party that Ms Robinson's defamation action against the Liberal Party and their pollsters has been settled very recently. I have been provided with a copy of the full terms of the settlement by the Labor Party, and I will deal with that at the conclusion of my speech because then I might seek leave to table those documents.

I want to stress that these documents have not been provided to me in breach of the confidentiality clause in that agreement. There are some very interesting admissions contained in those documents. In short, let me say that the Liberal Party, and Mark Textor himself, have unequivocally apologised to Ms Robinson for the push polling techniques that were used during the by-election, and admitted that:

Some of the questions were published without due regard to either the accuracy of the underlying material on which they were based, or the consequences of their publication.

So, in addition to the apologies, there is a significant damages payment involved.

In these documents we have clear-cut admissions from the Liberal Party and Mark Textor that they have used derogatory and what I would describe as despicable push polling techniques, and that those techniques have a disastrous effect, a disastrous personal effect, on the people against whom it is used.

This is the Liberal Party that the Prime Minister is proud to lead and this is the Prime Minister's personal pollster who the Prime Minister was prepared to vouch for in the House of Representatives last week. Remember that the Prime Minister stated that total propriety had been observed by the government in relation to these matters. That statement from the Prime Minister now is shown to be demonstrably false. Today we have proof positive that Mr Textor and the Liberal Party really go to the most grubby depths imaginable. They are prepared to stoop to any depths at all to try and steal a by-election from the Labor Party.

So you have to ask yourself, Mr Acting Deputy President, where did Mark Textor learn these sorts of push polling techniques? His current company, Australian Research Strategies, is the Australian arm of Wirthlin Worldwide, an international political research operation that is based just outside Washington DC. Its website boasts of its strategic partnership with Burson Marstellar, another corporate mate of the Liberal Party, notorious for its role in the guns buy-back campaign. Wirthlin Worldwide's president, Richard Wirthlin, is a director of Mark Textor's company, as is the president, James Granger. Wirthlin Worldwide provides research to a spectrum of extremist right wing organisations in America. Particularly notable is the research they provide for the Council for the National Interest, which of course is a Washington-based anti-Israel lobby group which promotes conspiracy theories regarding the level of Jewish influence in the United States.

We say that the only way that the Prime Minister of Australia can show good faith in this matter is for him to act to ensure that Mark Textor is never again used by the Liberal Party as its pollster. You have got to cut Mark Textor loose. You have got to condemn his push polling techniques. I seek leave to table the documents I have shown to the government.