Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know, I know! It would really be of no benefit because Hansard would not record my fantastic imitation of Yoda, even if I could do it! When you call the departments, trying to understand, they say: 'Do or do not. There is not "try".' If I am worried I may get something wrong, then, as Yoda would say, 'The fear of loss is the path to the dark side.' The last person I spoke to told me that was okay: 'It happens to every guy sometimes this does.' But let us hope these reforms provide clarity.

The final point I would like to make is that the world that I and many people here have come from—the world of corporate environments, government departments—is one where there is a priority placed on efficient and sensible systems. I have been stunned to discover that this area of government still runs on hard copy forms with tiny little columns that you cannot actually write in properly, and impenetrable codes that you cannot read properly on the bottom of forms, many of which say you have to fax them. I inherited an electorate office with a fax that no-one actually uses. We plugged it in, and I thought, 'We'll send off the fax.' Who uses a fax these days? But you had to fax the form back. The forms get faxed in and then lost, so we have started scanning them and emailing them. We unplugged the fax machine in the end, because some of the anti-marriage equality people were sending particularly horrid broadcasts around sodomy and all sorts of things. So we thought we had best unplug the fax in the end. We did not really need that. There is no online claims system. It is truly bizarre. I hope this is remedied quickly with the new authority as it wastes an incredible amount of time sitting there as a member of parliament—when you have got so many other things to do—trying to fill out these silly forms and fax them somewhere.

Accountability and transparency are also important, and I firmly believe that transparency improves culture and behaviour. Quite simply, it is human nature that, if we know our actions will be watched, if we know that people will see and scrutinise them, then that positively influences them. We have certainly seen that in more tragic places—for instance, in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, where a lack of transparency and accountability clearly drives unacceptable behaviours in all sorts of institutions. But I think it is true in any human collective endeavour. So it is good that, among other accountability measures, the authority will assume responsibility for the publishing of members and senators' expenses in a helpful format. That is currently done every six months in a weird sort of PDF format, but the authority will establish first quarterly and subsequently monthly reporting in a more accessible and searchable format, which our friends in the media will delight in, but I think that is actually an important part of holding us to account—that transparency in real time. There is also the requirement that, if an adjustment to certain travel plans is made or required, there will be a 25 per cent penalty.

In summary, I look forward to the establishment of the authority and dearly hope, like others in this place, that it draws a line in the sand and that in coming months and years we can start to rebuild some public trust and perhaps have a little bit more capital to prosecute things which are of great importance and in the national interest.

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