Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish I was pleased to rise to speak on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022, but this is a bill we should never have had to bring to this place. This is a bill that, frankly, should have been part of a policy that every single member of this place, especially those in leadership positions, should have respected in the first place, and not created the need to bring this bill into this place. We know that coming in here, in the last government, there was a constant undermining of this great institution. I'm going to run through some of the extraordinary decisions made by the former Prime Minister in appointing himself across all the really serious major policy and departments when he was the Prime Minister.

But it's more than that. When we came into this place after the 2019 election, every single time we put forward different items for debate and when we sought to engage in a democratic way on topics and even on the government's own bills—like on the EPBC Act, like when they were trying to ram through industrial relations reform—we wanted to speak and participate in our democratic arena of the House of Representatives. And time after time the Leader of the House came in here and moved that members be no longer heard, and second reading questions on legislation were immediately put, on whether or not a bill should be considered, without debate. I remember the EPBC Act bill, where they tried to bring back the failed Tony Abbott environmental reforms. Without even allowing debate on the floor of the parliament, they tried to ram that through.

We had in the last parliament a culture of the numbers of leaders of the House they had performing in that role coming in here—there wasn't respect for this institution. There wasn't the respect to say that this and each and every member of this place deserves the right to be heard and deserves the right to represent the communities they are privileged to be here on behalf of. There was a culture of, frankly—it was almost as if the Prime Minister didn't want to be here, almost as if the former Prime Minister felt this place was beneath him and his roles. But it is not. You can tell the difference between the current Prime Minister—someone who has a deep sense of this place, someone who respects this place, someone who respects the institution we are all privileged to be part of—and the former Prime Minister, who, time after time, allowed debate to be shut down, moved that members be not heard, refused to engage in debate and engaged in a culture of undermining the importance of our house of democracy.

What are we doing in return? This bill, the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022, will ensure that the Australian people are able to access information related to the composition of the federal Executive Council, those appointed to administer certain departments of state and the high offices that those ministers of state hold.

When we came into government, as you know, Deputy Speaker Georganas, we sought to try and rebuild trust with the Australian people. Democracy is important to us. Australian people believing in this institution is important to us. We on this side of the House wanted to rebuild a bit of trust and show the Australian people that we care about this place. This place matters. This institution needs to be protected by us as representatives of this place. We can't be coming in here with a culture of secrecy, a culture of shutting down debate and a culture of undermining and not respecting this institution.

Given all of that, it is hardly surprising that we uncovered the former Prime Minister in the most extraordinary of circumstances, having revealed not by him but for him, of the extraordinary power grab that he undertook in this place and as the Prime Minister of our country. We all knew that the member for Cook was the Prime Minister. It did grate a little bit, occasionally, but we all knew it—we all knew that the member for Cook was the Prime Minister. We had no idea that the member for Cook had taken carriage of five other portfolios.

I remember when the early days of COVID arrived—and there was not only a sense of urgency but also a sense of political unity—we had discussions as a federal Labor Party caucus about our approach. The main agreement we had was that we were going to work with the government to try to support the Australian people getting through these difficult times. That meant facilitating a special sitting of parliament, where we would come into this place and pass extraordinary measures that enabled Australians to isolate safely at home, to be able to have connections to their workplace and the JobKeeper and JobSeeker policies alike. There was goodwill.

If you were really desperate to justify the fact that the Prime Minister wanted to appoint himself as the minister for health, maybe a global pandemic is a justification for that as well, just in case—you never know what will happen, and there was a lot of uncertainty. That doesn't excuse the fact that the Prime Minister refused to tell anyone about it, that the Prime Minister didn't come into this place and say, 'Just to be clear, in case of an emergency, I have made myself as well the minister for health and, therefore, it is only as a contingency, just to ensure that there are people looking after the Australian people at all times.' I don't think that would have been necessary. I think that there are plenty of different ways in which the executive government can rearrange themselves and there are extraordinary circumstances to guide extraordinary times. But the Prime Minister didn't do that.

Just like that culture of shutting down debate, just like that culture of trying to ram through bills without giving members a chance to speak, the Prime Minister appointed himself to two different portfolios in March 2020 and didn't tell anyone. He didn't tell the Minister for Finance, the now head of the OECD, Mathias Cormann, that on 30 March 2020 the Prime Minister took the finance portfolio for himself. It was extraordinary times in March 2020.

We came in here working with the government in order to try and protect the Australian people and ensure that everything in this place was there to protect their interests, their livelihoods and their lives. What did the Prime Minister then do? He appointed himself the Minister for Finance but did not even tell his own finance minister. It is extraordinary that the Prime Minister had not a shred of respect for the then finance minister, not enough to say, 'By the way, mate, these are extraordinary times and I have just appointed myself, in case there is anything that you can't do, heaven forbid.'

It gets worse. He then appointed himself, on 15 April 2021, as the Minister for Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, because the then minister for resources was refusing to block the PEP-11 project off the coast of New South Wales. We all know where the Labor Party has stood and the advocacy on PEP-11 has been, and I'm not here to re-prosecute that old argument. But what this shows is that the former Prime Minister understood that he could take on specific and extra portfolios. He understood that, by him taking on those portfolios, he could use his responsibilities against the wishes of the current ministers who were sworn in under those portfolio responsibilities. What the former Prime Minister was doing was secretly acquiring powers to be used against his own cabinet ministers. If you are secretly acquiring powers to use against cabinet ministers, surely letting someone know would be a pretty good idea? Surely you should have the decency to let the Australian people know about your intentional power grab against your own ministers and it should be made public? But, of course, that didn't happen.

Then there was more. On 6 May 2021, long after those early days of the pandemic, the then Prime Minister decided to appoint himself as the Treasurer of Australia as well as the Minister for Home Affairs. Both of those portfolios have extraordinary powers. Both the Minister for Home Affairs and the Treasurer of Australia are senior portfolio positions. We had a prime minister who was intentionally acquiring portfolios and did not tell the then Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, nor did he tell the former Minister for Home Affairs.

This place matters, and the way in which executive government works matters. There must be an executive member in the chair at the dispatch box at all times because the executive is accountable to this place. The executive that runs our country is accountable to this building and to the Australian people when parliament is functioning. But the then Prime Minister not only didn't tell his colleagues or the Australian people that he was acquiring power to use against his colleagues; he was telling journalists! The former prime minister refused to come into this place or go on any national platform that he would have been given and tell people that he had actually acquired five different portfolios. But he knew this information was of interest, which is why he told two journalists, Mr Chambers and Mr Benson, for their book called Plagued. So the former prime minister was aware enough that he had acquired portfolios to use against his own cabinet colleagues, he was aware that the information was of enough interest that he wanted to tell journalists, but he didn't have the decency to say it in this place, he didn't have the decency to tell his own colleagues who were also on the executive serving under him and, worst of all, he didn't have the decency to tell the Australian people.

I don't know about you, but I like to think that every member of this place actually cares about the institution that we are privileged to represent in such that when we leave this place we can hold our heads high and say we served in this great institution to the best of our ability, because the Australian people deserve nothing less, and that we believe in this house of democracy, we believe in the House of Representatives and we believe that coming in here and serving our constituencies is a worthwhile profession. We're not in it for ourselves; we are in it to try to do something for our country. It is a great thing, and I know that people across all sides of politics believe in that. That is not something that is only to do with the Labor Party. Of course it's not. But coming with that is a respect for this place, and I hope the conservatives will join us in supporting this bill and saying that the undemocratic, secretive power grabs of the former prime minister, coming in this place and abusing the very institution that we are all proud to be a part of, should absolutely never happen again. I commend this bill to the House.

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