Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That the House:

(1) notes that

(a) on the evening of 23 October 2019, The Guardian reported the minister for emissions reduction had used incorrect figures from the City of Sydney annual report 2017-18 in a letter to the Lord Mayor of Sydney;

(b) the next day, the minister told the House, 'The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney's website';

(c) despite the minister's claim, all the evidence to date is that no such document ever existed on the website, the altered document has only ever been produced by the minister's office and the doctored figures have only ever been used by the minister in his official ministerial correspondence; including

(i) City of Sydney metadata, which shows the annual report on its website has not been altered since it was published on 27 November 2018;

(ii) public archives which show the annual report published on the City of Sydney website contained the correct travel figures on 27 March, 20 April, 19 June and 24 October 2019;

(iii) a Daily Telegraph report that 'Mr Taylor's office had sent the Daily Telegraph the altered document'; and

(iv) the draft letter the minister's department submitted to the minister's office contained no travel figures at all; and

(d) deliberately misleading the parliament is both a contempt of the parliament and a breach of the ministerial standards; and

(2) therefore, calls on the minister for emissions reduction to make a full and frank statement to the House before it rises tonight explaining how he has not deliberately misled the parliament.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion immediately:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) on the evening of 23 October 2019, the Guardian reported the Minister for Emissions Reduction had used incorrect figures from the City of Sydney Annual Report 2017-18 in a letter to the Lord Mayor of Sydney;

(b) the next day, the Minister told the House "The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney's website";

(c) despite the Minister's claim, all the evidence to date is that no such document ever existed on the website, the altered document has only ever been produced by the Minister's office and the doctored figures have only ever been used by the Minister in his official ministerial correspondence; including:

(i) City of Sydney metadata which shows the Annual Report on its website has not been altered since it was published on 27 November 2018;

(ii) public archives which show the Annual Report published on the City of Sydney website contained the correct travel figures on 27 March, 20 April, 19 June and 24 October 2019;

(iii) a Daily Telegraph report that "Mr Taylor's office had sent The Daily Telegraph the altered document"; and

(iv) the draft letter the Minister's Department submitted to the Minister's office contained no travel figures at all; and

(d) deliberately misleading the Parliament is both a contempt of the Parliament and a breach of the Ministerial Standards; and

(2) therefore, calls on the Minister for Emissions Reduction to make a full and frank statement to the House before it rises tonight explaining how he has not deliberately misled the Parliament.

This entire scandal is rotten to the core. We have in front of us what I think would have to be the most clear-cut example I have ever seen of a minister misleading the House. If we want to work through an argument to say that the minister has not misled the House, we have to presume that a document that was never altered on the website—where there is metadata establishing that it has never been altered, where you can go to the public archives that are kept and which show that, on 27 March, 20 April, 19 June and 24 October, it always had the correct figures—somehow magically, at that exact moment that the minister's office accessed the document, contained figures that it never contained before and never contained after on a document that was never altered. That is the argument from the minister.

There are very few standards these days that government ministers get held to. Basically, the last one is that a minister must not mislead the House. The words were not, 'I have been advised'; the words were not, 'To the best of my understanding'. The words from the minister were an assurance to the House:

The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney's website.

On all the public evidence, that cannot be true. It simply cannot be true. Yet that assurance was given. It wasn't given on a day when the minister wandered into parliament with no idea that he was going to be asked about this, because the scandal had already been published. It had already been published overnight that the figures he had supplied to the City of Sydney in his letter were wrong. You only had to look at them to see they were pretty extraordinary numbers that were in his letter. But he was completely forewarned from the media that there was a fair chance that this question was going to be asked of him on the floor of parliament. And he turned up to the House, was asked the questions that he had expected would come to him and gave the assurance to the House:

The document was drawn directly from the City of Sydney's website.

It simply cannot be true. It simply doesn't add up. And this is from someone who, we are told—and from time to time it gets reported—is one of the most talented members of the government. Now, that only tells us one of two things: either that is true—and it says something pretty depressing about the government—or that information was given to the media by the same person who published the words: 'Fantastic work. Well done, Angus!' It's (a) or (b).

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