Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is a perfect illustration of why we need the FOI to apply to the Future Fund. This is the public's money that you're investing, and, if it is being invested in dodgy corporations that then go off and do deals with dodgy regimes on the other side of democracy, then the public has a right to know about it. The government is taking that away. This is consistent with this government's activity when it comes to public money—they rort public money themselves, and then, when institutions that they oversee start investing in dodgy corporations, they want to cover it up. And of course this is the same Adani Ports that's part of the broader Adani Group that are also wanting to develop the monstrous Carmichael coalmine in the Galilee Basin. We only found out about the Future Fund's investment in a company that is building one of the most climate-destroying projects in the world because of our freedom of information laws. But, instead of responding to what is an international embarrassment and divesting from Adani Ports, the Future Fund and the government want to pull up the shutters so no-one can find out where public money is being invested.

That is a hallmark of this government. Whenever they are caught out, whenever they are exposed, they shut up shop. This government's idea of solving a problem is just to hide the problem and say, 'There's nothing to see here.' And schedule 2 of this bill is just the latest attempt by this government to avoid scrutiny.

I come back to the point that I made at the start: this is not about commercially sensitive information, because the Future Fund already has protection under the FOI Act from releasing commercially sensitive information. This is about the government running another cover-up.

I expect that there will be some members on the crossbench who support this, and I hope the opposition supports this, and I hope the government supports it, because this government is very fond of saying to everyone else, 'Oh, if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide.' They're very prepared to say to people online, 'We're going to force you to disclose things that you might not want to disclose.' They're very fond of saying to people who are doing it a bit tough, finding it hard to find a job and who are on welfare, 'We're going to force you to jump through hoops and do all sorts of things that most other people don't have to do.' And they pass law after law in this place to say people in their everyday activity, including their online activity, now lose the right to privacy. And they come in here time after time after time and say, 'If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide.' Well, apply the same logic to how you spend public money. The logic is even stronger when it comes to public money, if the government is to be at all consistent.

Again, I plead with other members of this House: do not pull up the shutters and remove the right for the public to know how the Future Fund is spending public money. This will not affect the Future Fund's commercial returns or investment. That remains protected, but what this will do, if members in this place don't support this amendment, is give the Future Find the right to engage in a whole new layer of secrecy and cover up investments, investments that we have already seen involve dealings with dictatorships and funding them indirectly through the use of public money.

If that is one thing that has been disclosed through FOI, what else is there? What else is there that the Future Fund is doing? We do need an overhaul of the Future Fund's investment mandate, but, until that time when we stop the Future Fund by law from investing in dodgy corporations or perhaps assisting dictatorships, then we should at least have the right to know where public money is going. We should at least have that right to know, because, if they were assisting the Myanmar military indirectly, then who knows who else the Future Fund is assisting, and the only way we'll find out is through freedom of information laws. So I commend these amendments to the House, because all they will do is provide a basic level of transparency into what the Future Fund is doing. And, if the government doesn't support them, and if others don't support them, then they are engaging in a cover-up of Future Fund activities.

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