04:09

Senate question time ends with a very fiery exchange about whether Simon Birmingham can guarantee that government staff will be available for interview by the police on NSW strike force Garrad investigating the use of a falsified document by Angus Taylor to attack Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore.

Birmingham said that the government will “cooperate with the police”. Labor’s Murray Watt notes that that is what Michaelia Cash had said about the AWU raid leak matter, but then she provided a written statement and refused to be interviewed.

Penny Wong shouts: “You’re hiding staff! What’s so hard about making staff available?”

Mathias Cormann labelled the referral to the NSW police “politically motivated”.

Birmingham noted that the record of the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, on police referrals is “eight zero – zero findings” (of criminal guilt).