Nick Xenophon Team backs Labor motion but will not seek to censure attorney general because they do not believe he misled parliament

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A Labor motion to strike down a controversial legal direction requiring the solicitor general to get the attorney general’s consent before giving legal advice will succeed after the Nick Xenophon Team and Derryn Hinch announced their support.

Nick Xenophon announced his party’s position in Adelaide on Tuesday, but said they would not support a motion to censure George Brandis because they did not believe he had failed to consult the solicitor general or misled parliament.

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On Monday the solicitor general, Justin Gleeson, resigned citing his “irretrievably broken” relationship with Brandis after a public disagreement about the direction.

Labor has already given notice it would ask the Senate to tear up the direction, and with Xenophon, the Greens’ and Hinch’s support it is certain to pass.

Hinch told Guardian Australia he “does not support the gatekeeper role adopted by the attorney general and would support the disallowance of the regulation”.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said Gleeson had been “tormented and bullied out of his position by bully [George] Brandis”.

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“We’ve lost a first-class legal mind ... it’s shameful, and the clock is now ticking for George Brandis to resign or be moved on by Malcolm Turnbull,” he said on Tuesday.

Turnbull thanked Gleeson for his service at a media conference in Brisbane.

It’s always regrettable when people don’t get on in the workplace. Malcolm Turnbull

“I understand why he has made that decision to resign. I think he has made the right decision,” he said. “It’s always regrettable when people don’t get on in the workplace.”

Asked if it would be hard to attract a new solicitor general and if the office is damaged, Turnbull replied that it “is one of the great offices of the law”.

“You will always find many distinguished lawyers who would be honoured to accept an appointment as solicitor general.”

Xenophon said Brandis had “overreached” and “stuffed up” by making the direction requiring his consent for legal advice.

Explaining the decision not to censure Brandis, Xenophon said he did not believe the attorney general had misled the Senate when he said he had consulted Gleeson before making the direction.

“Clearly there was consultation although it wasn’t very satisfactory from the solicitor general’s point of view,” he said, describing Labor’s call for Brandis’s resignation as “overreach”.

Labor has called for a transparent process to replace Gleeson, including a panel chaired by the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to draw up a shortlist.

Xenophon has gone a step further, calling for a requirement for parliamentary consultation or approval for senior statutory appointments.

Those included the solicitor general, public service commissioner, taxation commissioner, auditor general, commonwealth ombudsman, Australian federal police commissioner and the Australian statistician.

Xenophon said he would push for a parliamentary committee to scrutinise those appointments.

Senator Jacqui Lambie’s position on the direction is not yet known, but she voted to help set up the Senate committee inquiry into it and whether Brandis properly consulted Gleeson.

A spokesman for Pauline Hanson said One Nation had no comment on its position. The party voted against setting up the inquiry into Brandis.

On Tuesday the Greens’ justice spokesman, Senator Nick McKim, told Sky News Labor had no option but to bring a censure motion because it had called for Brandis’s resignation.

He said his party would reserve its position on whether to censure the attorney general until the committee reported on 7 November.

“The issue here is that it is the attorney general that created this problem, it was the attorney general that trained both of his barrels on Mr Gleeson at the committee hearing more than a week before,” McKim said.

At the 14 October hearing, Brandis said he was “shocked” Gleeson had not revealed earlier that he told the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, during the caretaker period he believed he hadn’t been consulted.