Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion immediately—That the House:

(1) notes:

(a) in the House today, the Environment Minister categorically denied reports that last night she said to the former President of Kiribati "I know why you're here. It is for the cash. For the Pacific it's always about the cash. I have my cheque book here. How much do you want?";

(b) however, multiple sources have confirmed to journalists that the Minister did in fact say those words;

(c) the Minister also told the House today during Question Time that only "a small amount of money" could be spent on administration under the Government's almost half a billion dollar Great Barrier Reef grant and that administration costs were capped at five per cent;

(d) however, under the Government's grant agreement up to 10 per cent of the entire grant can be spent on administration by the Foundation itself and a further 10 per cent of any grant money provided to subcontractors can be spent on administration as well, which means that more than $80 million can be spent on administration; and

(e) immediately before providing this incorrect information, the Minister was handed a note by the Prime Minister which she appeared to rely on during her answer when she falsely claimed that administration costs were capped at five per cent—an amount $60 million lower than what is the case; and

(2) therefore, calls on the Environment Minister to:

(a) attend the House to correct her answers as she is required to do under the Prime Minister's Ministerial Standards; and

(b) advise the House whether any of the incorrect information she provided was as a result of the note handed to her by the Prime Minister.

It beggars belief that what we saw today was anything other than the Minister for the Environment misleading the House of Representatives. And when a minister misleads, they have an obligation to come into this place and correct the record. There is no doubt that by now the minister knows she misled. Her own office has a copy of the contract that makes it clear that more than $80 million can be spent on administration. They know that what was provided to this parliament is wrong. I suspect the minister would have been here a moment ago for the division. The obligation under ministerial standards is that you correct the record at the first available opportunity. Well, where is the minister? The minister should be here now correcting the record, because we saw two misleads that she needs to address. One of them appears to have been on the basis of false information having been provided to her by none other than the Prime Minister of Australia.

You really start to see what happens when the advertising guy has been put in charge of everything. It doesn't matter to them now whether what's presented is factual; all that matters to them is that they get over the next hurdle. This minister would have known exactly what she said last night to the former President of Kiribati. The words were put to her in writing by Senator Patrick Dodson prior to question time so that she was fully forewarned about this, and other people who were present have since corroborated the exact account that was presented to her in question time. What does the minister say? Sometimes you get weasel words—they say there was a different context or it was a little bit different. No, the words from the minister today were these: 'I 100 per cent disagree with what he has said was the conversation.' There is no room to move now. We had a minister provide information to the parliament about what she said last night to the former President of Kiribati that, based on all of the evidence in front of us, is just plain wrong.

We had that same minister in question time today provide information to us about how much could be spent on administration that is demonstrably wrong, based on the contract that the government itself has signed with the foundation. When did the government ever tell us, when they gave half a billion dollars away to a small private foundation, that $80 million of that wasn't for the reef but for a small private foundation to become a really big foundation and for a whole lot of contractors to take 10 per cent off the top as well? The minister described the amount that could be spent on administration in these terms: she said it was 'a small amount of money'. It takes a pretty extraordinary level of incompetence and denial to describe as 'a small amount of money' even $20 million, but, when it's $80 million, that's extraordinary.

Sometimes we come back after question time when someone has provided information that is incorrect. Often at the end of question time ministers or even prime ministers will stand up and add to an answer and correct information that they provided that was false. But this minister provided false information about what happened last night and provided false information about what is in black and white in a contract. She then would have come back here, I suspect, for the division. She has been available to the House. The shadow minister for climate change and I had a media conference a little while ago—more than an hour ago—explaining all of these issues. So there is no doubt that the minister, by the time she walked into the House for the division, knew she had misled the parliament. She knew. What did she do? Did she walk up to the dispatch box? Did she let people know that she was correcting the record? No, she just walked out again, as though there is not a problem.

Misleading the House has been described by none other than the Minister for Home Affairs as a cardinal sin. Misleading the House is the one thing that everybody in Westminster has always agreed is a reason a minister would have to go. But it has always been accepted that if someone makes a mistake they merely have to correct the record. Well, the minister has had the opportunity, and she hasn't done that. So it's time for the House to call on the minister to come back here and correct the record and to tell the truth about what was said last night, rather than to give an account of the conversation last night with the former President of Kiribati that doesn't match the version corroborated by the other people who just happened to have heard what was said. The minister needs to come back and tell the truth about what was said last night.

The minister needs to come back and tell the truth about how much money this government claimed was going to the Great Barrier Reef and instead is being thrown away so a foundation run by some of their mates can go from being a small foundation employing half a dozen people full time to being a foundation that has tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars at its disposal not for the reef but for itself. Don't forget: 'administration costs' will include their own salaries. 'Administration costs' will include their own friends who they choose to employ, and the contractors will have the same opportunity.

If you are the Minister for the Environment in that government, of all the things that could be a factual piece of information that you probably should know about, it's probably the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. It's not like it's been a small issue. It's not like the concept that's in front of us is something that wasn't likely to come up in question time.

It's one thing for a minister to be incompetent. It's one thing for a minister not to be able to answer questions that should have been in the question time briefing so she should have known or questions that she should have known because they only happened last night. It's another thing for the minister to then think that ministers in this government are just above the rules, that they can provide misleading information to this parliament and it just doesn't matter. It does matter, and this parliament will expect this minister to come back into the House and to correct the record, to tell the truth about how much money can be thrown away on administration and tell the truth about what was said last night to the former President of Kiribati.

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