Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I take the interjection about ambulance chasing. I was often accused of it but it was not an area of law I ever practised—I always found it too difficult—but it was something the Labor Party concocted many years ago.

Mr Trevor’s practice is one of those that one refers to as ‘ambulance chasing’. It looks after all the unionists who have a fall at work and then sue their bosses. Mr Trevor has a very big and busy practice. I have no idea whether Mr Trevor is still in practice. If he is not then using his photograph on an advertisement for his former firm would seem to be misleading in the extreme. That would presuppose that he is still in practice.

I happen to know the electorate of Flynn very well. I campaigned there a lot during the campaign. We did very well in the Senate vote there. It is a huge electorate. It goes from Gladstone right out to Winton and Longreach, with all the places in between. There are the big cities of Emerald, Biloela and Barcaldine. I was talking to a journalist in Longreach the other day. I said, ‘I suppose Mr Trevor has been out here quite a bit since the election three months ago?’ The journalist said to me, ‘We haven’t seen him yet, but we understand he is coming.’

I will just give Mr Trevor this advice: people out there expect to be represented. I do a lot of representation in that area because the people there obviously do not have a great deal of confidence in their current member. You cannot sit in Gladstone running a legal practice when you have a huge electorate with a very diverse range of issues to serve. If Mr Trevor is still in practice, he should give it away straightaway, as I did. If he is not in practice, his advertising needs to be checked a bit further.

I want to go one further. What is the difference between Mr Trevor earning an income from his legal practice in Gladstone and Mr Vaile’s situation? I am not defending Mr Vaile, and I do not want to defend Mr Trevor either. But I would like those people in the Labor Party, who seem to raise the hypocritical argument that it is wrong for Mr Vaile but not for Mr Trevor, to explain to me the issues of consistency and lack of hypocrisy in the attack they have made on Mr Vaile.

Question agreed to.