Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important motion because it goes to one of the most important aspects of Australian political culture—that is, the culture of the political parties that seek to represent and make decisions for the future of all Australians. We know that at the start of this parliamentary term the Labor Party and the Greens, together with some of the Independent members, made a big song and dance about letting the sunshine in. We heard words such as 'transparency' thrown about, and we heard a government talk about wanting to live up to a new, higher standard, a standard that it said was about providing the Australian public with confidence, in that they would know that this was a government—effectively, a coalition with the Greens—that they could have faith in.

But what we have seen come to pass is that nothing could be further from the truth, because this Labor government, together with the Greens—and here in the lower house, of course, it is the member for Melbourne—is a government that continues to operate on the basis of hiding information and only releasing the spin doctor news headlines that it is after without actually putting down the detail that the public is entitled to. So I absolutely congratulate the member for Mayo for his initiative with this particular motion, because it goes to that central issue—that is, the unreliability of this government when it comes to being transparent and open with the Australian people.

The Australian people should be concerned, because there are some fundamentals at stake in relation to this motion. Most importantly with respect to the Labor Party, we know that their inability to control the budget not only over the forward estimates but in the out years as well is rapidly becoming a major problem. We have seen announcement after announcement, headline after headline, from a desperate Prime Minister and a desperate government, which we estimate equate to around $120 billion of fiscal deficit as a consequence of the government's announcements, with no follow-through in terms of the policy rigour required to demonstrate how that money will actually be used and, most importantly, how the revenue will be derived to fund the policies that they like to be up there announcing.

In exactly the same spirit, we see the Greens. They would have to be the epitome of a political party that is all care and no responsibility. We know that the Greens have submitted policies to Treasury for costing. The member for Mayo through his excellent work on the opposition's Labor waste watch committee, which closely scrutinises the expenditure that the government undertakes—and it has been effectively an orgy of excess when it comes to the ways in which this government is wasting taxpayers' funds—put forward an FOI, or freedom of information, request for 12 documents. We discovered, off the back of that, that the government, through the department, said, 'No, you're not entitled to that information.'

Now, we know the way in which the Freedom of Information Act operates. In particular, the cabinet exemption—that is, section 34—stipulates that, if there is close contextual proximity to matters considered by cabinet, then there is an exemption for the release of that information. The act is clear in saying that it must have been brought into existence for the 'dominant' purpose of a cabinet related matter. How extraordinary then that Greens policy costings—on what, frankly, are mainly fairly zany policies, but that notwithstanding—according to the government are being submitted to Treasury for the dominant—that is, not incidental—purpose of setting government policy.

We have been saying for some time now that it appears to be a case of the tail wagging the dog, and this just reinforces that running through the Gillard Labor government is a very thick green stripe—and I use the word 'thick' very deliberately. There is a very thick green stripe through this Labor government. That is the reason why: if it sets a precedent on this matter when it comes to Greens policies and their costings, it hopes that it will not be subject to the scrutiny required when it comes to the $120 billion fiscal deficit that this government is going to run up by 2020.

It is important because, fundamentally, the Australians that have to pay for this government's largesse, the Australians that have to pay the ultimate price for this government's attempt to buy its way back into power, will be the Aussie kids of today. For the next two decades, they will be paying off its debt. It should stand up to the standards it set— (Time expired)

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