Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to second this most important amendment by the member for Melbourne. The Royal Commissions Amendment (Confidentiality Protections) Bill 2020 would amend the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and make consequential amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to ensure ongoing confidentiality protections for people seeking to give evidence to the disability royal commission.

Just to explain to Australians who are listening to this parliamentary debate and to those in the media who are curious why the government is opposing this, the status quo is that there's a disability royal commission underway, one which I called for with Labor in 2007 and one which the Greens have been on the record as supporting for a very long time. The federal government did move to set up a disability royal commission in 2019 I think or at the end of 2018.

This royal commission is underway, and it's heard horrific stories. Currently, the process is that evidence which is received in private sessions conducted by the disability royal commission is guaranteed to remain confidential after the commission's work is done; however—and this is where the need for these amendments, supported by the Senate, remarkably, comes into play—the same privacy protections do not apply where evidence or information was received by the commission outside of private session. Not all evidence is given in private session; some evidence is given outside of private session. Prior to the evidence or information being given, the commission indicated to the person providing the evidence or information that it would be treated as confidential, so, even if the commission said they'd treat it as private, that can't be enforced. In fact, even after it was received by the commission, the material was treated as confidential, but the privacy protections do not apply. So this is an important bill.

We're fixing up something which should be fixed up. Most significantly, even though the government demonstrated some recalcitrance, to which I'll return, the majority of the Senate, one of the two houses of the Australian parliament, passed this bill. Bizarrely, although the coalition oppose this bill and they were in the minority in the Senate voting against it, they've actually agreed with what the bill proposes. For Australians driving home or listening to this debate, I'll repeat that. There is a flaw in the disability royal commission. The flaw has been pointed out. The Senate has, by a majority, voted to rectify the flaws, and we seek to now do that in the lower house, but the coalition said, 'Yes, you're right: there are flaws. But no, we will not vote for it.' This is why people hate Australian politics! This is game playing at its most extreme.

It is up to the coalition and the backbench of the coalition to explain why they are holding a position which is so bendable, so rubbery that on the one hand they think it should be fixed but on the other hand they don't think they should fix it now. The position of the coalition would not be out of place in the famous illustrated Indian Sanskrit text—this Australian government is so contorted. In fact, the Attorney-General put out a media release in October of last year and he entitled it 'Legislative reforms to provide greater privacy protections for participants in disability royal commission'. In it, the government pledged to make amendments to the Royal Commissions Act, which this bill before the House does today, to provide the confidentiality of information given to this nationally significant inquiry. So the Attorney-General has said that they want to have a bill which does what we're doing today, but they can't actually vote for it.

The reason why this has come about is the chair of the royal commission, the Honourable Ronald Sackville, AO, QC, requested these amendments which we're putting up. So not only has the government agreed there's a flaw, not only have the opposition and the crossbenchers recognised there is a flaw, but it's on the basis of the chair of the royal commission, who the government appointed to do the work. He's said people with disability should get the reassurance their information will be protected during the life of the royal commission and after it's concluded its work. So the Attorney-General, when he was taking his sensible pill, said he's instructed his department 'to work swiftly on the amendments.' Well, they certainly haven't won any medals for swiftness. In fact, the government's been so plodding and ponderous on this that others have had to step into the breach, hence this bill.

Disability advocates have argued persuasively that to maintain the integrity of the royal commission people should have their privacy protected. The amendments in this bill have been sought by disability advocates and sought by the chair of the disability royal commission. In fact, it is impossible to find anyone who doesn't agree with the amendments. But this is the stupidity of Australian politics at this point in time. The coalition know our amendments are right, they just cannot vote for them. I say again: they know this is correct, they just won't vote for it. They privately say it's correct. Everyone says this is correct. But we are stuck in this very unusual situation. So, despite the Morrison government's aversion to following through on its agenda and actually doing what it says it'll do, are the House of Reps coalition members really going to vote against legislation their own Attorney-General said should be swiftly enacted, the royal commission said should be enacted, disability advocates said should be enacted and the Senate said should be enacted?

The reason why they oppose it, though—and this really needs to be explored—is that this is essentially their own plan. The unkind would call this an act of bastardry. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. I'll leave it to the people of Australia to judge this. But, whatever you call this act, it is certainly strange and surreal. They're saying to Australians with disability, 'We'll get around to giving you a royal commission where your privacy is protected but on our terms and only on our time line.' They're simply saying, 'Too bad, so sad; we can't do this.' This is actually ridiculous. Members of the government might say, 'If the opposition and the Greens want to do it, we must vote against it.' That's what people hate about Australian politics. Disability organisations raised this privacy problem 300 days ago, in May 2020. Yet we're still here and we're still waiting—waiting for people with disability just to be able to have the protections of privacy in the royal commission which this government's called.

The government have consistently shown a disinterest in acting on things, and this is what I want to talk about in the remaining few minutes of this presentation on this amendment. People with disability, and carers, have worked this government out: they're just not interested—for whatever reason. This is a case where the government have said, 'Yes, we know it should change, but, because someone else is saying it, we won't do it.' This is arrogance. This is hubris. This is conceited behaviour. This is pompous behaviour. This is haughty. This is a government with an exaggerated sense of their own infallibility.

But we've seen this throughout the handling of the disability portfolio and government services. We've had the poor old head of the National Disability Insurance Agency declare, in year eight of this government, that they're going to go back to basics for the NDIS. What have you been doing for the last eight years? Now we're paying senior public servants and ministers to go back to basics, but what have you been doing for the last eight years? We've got the robodebt issue, which was pointed out by advocates as being a problem for years. I had the temerity to write an article in a newspaper saying it was probably an illegal scheme more than a year ago—but this government has to wait till the Dawe report and its own ministers and senior public servants will be dragged to give evidence to finally settle. This is an out-of-touch government. We've already celebrated the third birthday of Labor's call to set up a national anti-corruption commission and this government won't do it. They spent a year and a half fighting the advocates once it was absolutely established beyond doubt that robodebt was illegal—and they wasted hundreds of millions of dollars more in fighting the claim. We've got the disability support pensioners, who were neglected during the COVID crisis. The government's ultimate salt on the wound of its treatment of disability and carers is to give us Stuart Robert as the minister for that area, showing what the government really thinks of the portfolio.

But all issues aside—that laundry list of government neglect and disinterest—this bill should be supported because there is a flaw in the ability of people to have privacy when they give evidence in a royal commission. The flaw has been spotted and identified. The Attorney-General said he wanted swift action. Disability advocates have said this is a terrible flaw. The chairman of the royal commission, the Hon. Ronald Sackville, has said something needs to be done about this. And yet, like the good old troops that they are, the coalition lions on the backbench led by the donkeys on the frontbench are going to march into the guns of voting on something which is errantly stupid. There is no argument. What the government spinners say behind lines is: 'Oh well, the royal commissioner can do this anyway. This is all a fuss about nothing.' Well, if it was a fuss about nothing, why would the chairman of the royal commission be raising it? If it was a fuss about nothing, why did the Attorney-General say to act swiftly? I would just say to coalition members that blind obedience to stupid orders isn't always the wisest course of action for your constituents. (Time expired)

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