Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In today's The Daily Telegraph, there is a claim that I, as well as other Labor MPs, breached protocol by attempting to take budget documents with me when I left the budget lock-up at 7 pm on budget night. The article refers to 'a major security breach' that broke strict protocols to protect embargoes. This claim is entirely false. It has been longstanding practice in this place for members of parliament to leave the lock-up at 7 pm so they can interact with other members of their party before the budget is delivered. Members have always taken budget papers with them when they leave. This was the practice observed by Labor governments for the Nelson, Turnbull and Abbott oppositions and observed by Treasurer Costello for his entire time as Treasurer.

In fact, the Treasurer wrote to the Leader of the Opposition on 8 March this year outlining the arrangements for the lock-up. The letter says, inter alia, 'Participants may enter the lock-up after 1.30 but cannot leave until 7.30 pm, with the exception of members of parliament, who may leave the lock-up at 7 pm.' The letter does not say that documents cannot be removed, and at no stage was any change to the longstanding convention that the opposition can take the budget documents with them discussed with me or anybody else in the opposition.

On budget night this year, for the first time ever, Treasury officials sought to prevent Labor members leaving with their budget papers. This was entirely without warning and without precedent. The documents which Senator Wong, the member for Jagajaga and I had were personally annotated and in some cases contained extensive notes. Far from this being a breach of protocol on our part, the very serious breach of protocol was that it was attempted to cease us leaving with the documents. I do not know where the instruction originated from, but it is a serious breach, and it is a direct threat to members of parliament being able to do their job. The Treasury officials who carried out this instruction were clearly following orders and just doing their job. The situation was not their fault. Any suggestion that any Labor member alleged otherwise is also patently false.

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