Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance) Share this | Hansard source

It would be illegal, and they do not happen because public servants take records. If you did it as a minister you would be a mug. It does not rule it out as a possibility, but you should not. This process needs to be at arm’s length from ministers, against legislated criteria that are reviewable. That is the process of best practice government, not that there is no information in the government that cannot be released—of course there is—but there is a legislative framework that says what can be released and it is administered at arm’s length from ministers and is reviewable. Those are the princi-ples that we will be applying. They are the principles of good government; they are the 21st-century principles that people expect.

If the opposition think that is not good enough when the legislation comes in, let them propose some amendments to broaden it. I will be amazed because they had 12 years to do something about it but they did nothing. The core question under debate is really not about freedom of information. The opposition do not believe in freedom of information. They undermined it at every possible point. It is about industrial relations. It was the defining issue of Australian politics last year, it is the defining issue of Australian politics this year and, by all indications, it is going to be the defining issue of Australian politics for the rest of this term because the opposition, to the extent you can discern a continuity of view in their position, still support individual contracts. They are still out of touch with working families. The party that created Work Choices still support Work Choices, but they do not mention the words. It sounds like a scene from Fawlty Towers: ‘Don’t mention Work Choices!’ They always love to talk about individual contracts. The opposition are always going to be associated with the extremism of Work Choices. Significant parts of the Liberal Party, including the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister, remain firmly and publicly in support of Work Choices and AWAs, but we are about a different model, a 21st-century productive model which meets the challenges of the future and can deliver for working families.

The shock is, I suppose—and this is causing some real difficulty for the opposition—that we are proposing to do in government what we said in opposition we would do. I know that is an extraordinary proposition. It never occurred to you. You ought to try it sometime in the distant future. The public might like it. You have two hurdles: one is you have to win; the second is you have to change your spots because you never tried it in government. I think the most demeaning and undermining statement of contemporary Australian politics is the concept of the non-core promise. Australians found it a revolting concept and they were right—it is a revolting concept. Sometimes you have to stand up in public and say, ‘I wanted to do this but circumstances have changed and I cannot.’ We have not confronted that crisis but every government does. People do not mark you down for that, if you stand up say, ‘I wanted to do it but now I can’t.’ But to say, ‘I never really meant it,’ is most undermining of the democratic process. It undermines the confidence of Australians in political parties and in political processes. It eroded the trust of Australians for a decade.

We are going to try a new model of governance. Industrial relations is a core issue. Governance is not so front of mind, but people are seeing a different approach. They like it and we intend to continue to deliver it. We intend to continue to say that modern governance demands something better than the previous government offered. It demands that people say what they are going to do, do it and tell them they have done it. If you cannot do it, you fess up and say why. That is what people expect of their governments. Governments are made up of human beings. They make mistakes. You cannot get everything right and circumstances change, but what they want us to do is look them in the eye and be honest with them—do what we promised or explain why not.

I do not know—and if I knew I could not say—what is going to be in the budget. One of the key characteristics of which I am aware so far is that it is about implementing election commitments. I think you ought to think about that as a concept, the revolutionary idea that when you promise to do something you ought to do it. We promised to get rid of AWAs and we did. We promised to change the FOI laws and we will. The Australian people will welcome this new and more decent approach to governance. Sometime you should try it.

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