Senator ELLISON (Special Minister of State) (5:52 PM) —I can only reiterate that the department is looking into these matters, and that it would be unwise to comment on operational matters. Senator Carr knows that any inadvertent comment from me could well result in those who might be guilty escaping from proper investigation, and I am not about to do that, as I am not about to pre-empt any finding of the same. There is an investigation process; due process has to take its course. I reject entirely the allegation of Senator Carr that we are not pursuing these matters.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Hogg) —Minister, there is one issue that does need clarification. Senator Stott Despoja sought to table a second document. I want to clarify whether leave is granted for that document to be tabled.

Senator ELLISON —I have had a chance to have a quick look at this document. The thing that strikes me is that at the bottom of the document it states, `This document has been retyped from the original.' I had understood, when Senator Stott Despoja was talking of this document, that we were dealing with a document which purported to be a cabinet submission and not a copy or retyping thereof. What we are talking about is two very different documents.

What we would be doing here, were we to allow this to go forward in its self-proclamation as a cabinet submission, would be to rely on an anonymous person who has retyped this document and to rely on that person as having: (a) retyped this from a cabinet submission; and (b) done so accurately. Without knowing who did that and the circumstances and without knowing about the original document, no Australian government would ever agree to the tabling of such a document.

This could be the greatest fraud of all time—I am not to know—because we have at the bottom of each page, `This document has been retyped from the original,' not copied but retyped. It could have been reframed, reworded. We do not know the identity of the person who sat down and retyped it. We do not know what the original document looked like. We have nothing which identifies the original here. There is no copy number on this submission. So I reject entirely that this document is what it says it is. On that basis, the government refuses leave.