SENATE

Page 10 Senate Friday, 17 February 2017
law which offended the part of the Commonwealth Constitution that deals with judicial power? Was there a
problem in the state law seeking to change the arrangements of people currently involved in current litigation?
Those were the three issues that arose.
The evidence that was given by the tax office was that broadly—very broadly, once again I think this is safe to
say—their particular interest was in what they regarded as the revenue side of revenue issue, and that issue was:
was the WA law inconsistent with the Commonwealth tax law—that being the revenue connection. They have
said, 'That was the thing that was of interest to us', and that was the matter for which the Commissioner of
Taxation filed submissions and sought leave to intervene. Does that get to the point?
Senator BACK: Yes, it does; thank you. I can comprehend that, and thank you for that very useful
explanation. I wanted to go to any role that the Attorney-General may have had in that process, but I think I have
learnt that he had no role.
Mr Faulkner: I am happy to come back to that matter. That might be the wrong inference to draw, but I am
happy to explain that shortly, perhaps.
Senator BACK: Okay. I will defer to others and then, if time permits, Madam Chair, I will come back to my
line of questions.
Senator HINCH: Mr Anderson, I want to go back to your responses to questions on notice from 7 December.
To do that, I want to go to the Attorney-General's, Senator Brandis's, comments to the Senate on 28 November,
when he said:
After I indicated that I did not intend to intervene in the proceedings on behalf of the Commonwealth, I was contacted by
the Solicitor-General, Mr Gleeson. He gave me certain advice.
Which obviously was not passed on. He said:
I do not, by what I am about to say, waive the Commonwealth's privilege in that advice. It is sufficient to say that Mr Gleeson
was strongly of the view that the Commonwealth should intervene …
Cutting to the chase here, he said:
… I saw the force of what Mr Gleeson put to me and I accepted his advice.
Then after that, on 30 March according to the senator, he said he instructed the Commonwealth to give notice of
intervention in the proceedings. This makes that March meeting very important. That is the one you went to in
March?
Mr Anderson: I was at that meeting; that is right.
Senator HINCH: At that meeting, was that where the Attorney-General told the Solicitor-General to run dead
or not proceed to the High Court?
Mr Anderson: There was no discussion in those terms.
Senator HINCH: 'In those terms'?
Mr Anderson: I am not aware of any discussion along those terms.
Senator HINCH: So there was not a discussion along the lines of the Attorney-General saying to the
Solicitor-General, 'I don't want you to do this', and the Solicitor-General saying, 'Well I don't work for you; I work
for the ATO.' He was representing the tax office, wasn't he?
Mr Anderson: He was representing the ATO, who had already intervened from 8 March. But, no, there was
no discussion in those terms. My recollection from the discussion, and it is getting further in the past of course, is
that there was a discussion around the fact that the Solicitor-General had put some views to the Attorney—
Senator HINCH: Very strongly.
Mr Anderson: and the Attorney simply noted he would put those views. I think he repeated those views, and
there was a brief discussion around the case and the reasons for intervention. I think the Attorney said words to
the effect of he would look into it further.
Senator HINCH: So the Attorney-General did not tell the Solicitor-General, 'You work for me'?
Mr Anderson: No. I do not recall any discussion or any words along those lines at all.
Senator HINCH: And you probably cannot answer this, but it would appear to me that this was the crux of
the antipathy between the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, which led eventually to the Solicitor-
General's resignation.
Mr Anderson: I cannot make that connection. I am not aware of that being a connection. That matter was put
to the Attorney—I am trying to think whether it was in this inquiry or in another inquiry—and I think the
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