Mal Brough has apologised for comments made about current affairs show 60 Minutes, but has stopped short of admitting he misled the parliament on the matter, as Labor ramps up pressure on the special minister of state over his role in the downfall of the former Speaker, Peter Slipper.
“Yesterday during question time I said: In relation to the 60 Minutes interview, what was put to air was not the full question,” Brough told the chamber on Wednesday morning.
“Mr Speaker, my recollection of the interview was that the question was put to me in a somewhat disjointed manner, and I answered the question without clarifying precisely what part of the question I was responding to,” he said.
“Mr Speaker, I have taken the opportunity to review the tape and transcript, and apologise to the house if my statement yesterday unwittingly added to the confusion rather than clarifying the matter.”
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, moved a censure motion against Brough as the first order of business in the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning.
“At no stage did the minister take the opportunity to correct the record in the parliament, despite the House of Representatives sitting until 9.30pm last night,” Dreyfus told the chamber.
The motion also moved to censure the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, for his “atrocious judgment” in appointing Brough as a minister.
The motion failed on the floor of the house, which the government controls, after the leader of the house, Christopher Pyne, gagged debate. No government MPs spoke to defend Brough before the debate was gagged.
“Are ministers now allowed to lie to the parliament,” the manager of opposition business in the house, Tony Burke, asked in the chamber. “Will the manager of government business defend the minister in the next speech? I want to hear that.”
The deputy Liberal leader, Julie Bishop, called for Brough to be afforded “due process” and said she did not believe the minister had misled parliament.
On Tuesday, Brough told parliament the interview with 60 Minutes, which was aired in 2014 and featured an admission from Brough that he had asked former staffer James Ashby to procure Slipper’s diary, was selectively edited.
“In relation to the 60 Minutes interview, what was put to air was not the full question,” he said in question time.
The Channel Nine current affairs show on Tuesday released the full, unedited version of the interview and Dreyfus was invited to watch it.
“It appears that Mal Brough has misled parliament. He said yesterday that the 60 Minutes interview in which he gave clear answers to clear questions had been selectively edited,” the shadow attorney general told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s absolutely clear that the question he was asked was what he answered, that there wasn’t a selective editing. That appears then that he has misled parliament.”
The interview “condemns” Brough “from his own mouth”, Dreyfus argued.
Brough faces intense pressure from Labor to resign or stand aside as the parliamentary year wraps up on Thursday.
The acting opposition leader, Tanya Plibersek, has vowed to continue interrogating Brough during question time.
“When Mal Brough goes into areas like claiming that interviews have been doctored, he opens up whole new areas of questioning,” she told ABC TV on Wednesday.
Turnbull, who on Wednesday returned from the United Nations climate conference in Paris, is also under intense scrutiny. The prime minister has previously backed Brough, saying he has “confidence” in the minister.
Dreyfus has criticised Turnbull for appointing Brough to the portfolio that oversees parliamentary integrity. Since that appointment, the Australian federal police have executed a search warrant on Brough’s Queensland residence.
Dreyfus said he could not remember the last time a serving minister had been in the “extraordinary circumstance” of being the subject of an AFP search.
“That alone should be sufficient for him to be stood aside by the prime minister, if he won’t stand aside himself, until that police investigation is completed,” he said.
Labor has been quick to cast Brough’s ministry appointment as a question of Turnbull’s judgement.
“Whatever else one can say about Mal Brough, he’s clearly good at plotting,” Dreyfus said. “This [ministry position] was a reward from Malcolm Turnbull to him, on Mal Brough’s role – as yet undisclosed – in the plotting that took place over this year to remove Tony Abbott as prime minister of Australia.”
On Tuesday, Ashby defended Brough during an interview with Macquarie Radio.
“I don’t know exactly how that 60 Minutes interview was cut, but obviously it didn’t look good for Mal Brough,” he said. “But I can assure you that never at any point did Mal Brough ask me for copies of those diaries.”
The question mark over Brough threatens to derail the government’s legislative agenda over the last two days of parliamentary sittings.
Brough won the seat of Fisher in Queensland from Slipper in the last federal election.
The full transcript of the 60 Minutes interview can be viewed here.
