Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in favour of the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 as it will strengthen and protect the foundations of our transparent and accountable democracy. After winning the election, the Albanese government knew we would have to put in the hard yards to win back the public's trust in Australian politics after a decade of rip-offs, rorts and waste. It is why the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission was our top priority and it is why we have brought this bill to the House. It is to uphold what are clear principles and values, to uphold the expectations that the Australian people have of us and the expectations that come with holding high office. The bill will only strengthen the integrity of Australian politics. It will make sure there are mechanisms in place to ensure that never ever again can any megalomaniac individual make unorthodox and secret power grabs.

I must admit, I knew a lot of work would have to be done when we came into government. After having nine years of the coalition and with public trust in the government rapidly declining, our place in the global corruption standards was something not to be proud of. Labor developed a plan to tackle the key issues voters brought up during the campaign: integrity, transparency and accountability. But nothing could prepare us for what came next. The member for Cook was able to use a loophole to monopolise and cement his control over cabinet but without them even knowing.

The amendment bill is a defence of our democracy and its principles, something the previous Prime Minister wouldn't understand, considering he trampled on these principles in his blind pursuit for power. When the secret ministries of the former prime minister started being reported in August, the nation was shocked. The general attitude of the opposition was that it should be something easy for the Australian people to get over, despite being misled. While five secret jobs are often used as a joke on satire website 'Down the pub', Australians are still feeling a sense of disbelief and bewilderment that something like this could happen within our democracy. What the member for Cook fails to grasp is that what he did may have been legal but no-one who values our democracy or our nation would say that it was right, which is why we on this side are moving swiftly to implement the recommendations of the Bell inquiry so Australians can—which that might come as a shock to the other side—know who is responsible for which ministries and which departments. It is essential for what we do.

The Solicitor-General, Dr Stephen Donahue KC, in the wake of the revelations, said, 'The principles of responsible government are fundamentally undermined by the actions of the former government.' The review that Virginia Bell AC conducted came from the advice of the Solicitor-General and the outcry from the public for action to be taken. To make this non-partisan, the government appointed an independent person from the outset of the inquiry. The review took contributions of current and former public servants, ministers, ministerial advisors, academics and experts in the fields of constitutional law and public administration. Ms Bell wrote to the leaders of the minor political parties representing the parliament, all the independent parliamentarians, the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, inviting them to meet with her. Why do I go through such detail? It is because I want to highlight the lengths that Ms Bell went through to create the rounded picture of the situation and to highlight the utter disregard and, to be frank, disrespect that the member for Cook had during this process.

While the member for Cook paraded around and said he would fully cooperate with any investigation, we ended up seeing the former prime minister not having the courage to meet with Ms Bell. He even squibbed it, saying that he would only communicate through lawyers. It is familiar, isn't it? I wonder who else in recent political history was known for running in the other direction when asked to take responsibility? This report found that the former prime minister's actions led to a highly centralised government, with even his own chief of staff in the PMO not being clued into all the portfolios that the Prime Minister swore himself into.

The secretive nature of these actions had ripple effects across government. It was a tool that undermined public confidence in government. Yet, despite those findings, we are yet to see any remorse or any effort to help rebuild the institutions the member for Cook took a torch to. For another perspective, constitutional law expert Professor Anne Twomey from the University of Sydney called these secret appointments 'bizarre' and 'utterly inappropriate'. She went on to argue that the secretiveness of this ordeal spells a wider problem.

The pandemic is often used by the member himself and his supporters as an explanation for his actions. If it is so good of an explanation, why did he keep it from the public? Why weren't the Australian people told of his secret plan to take over the government from the inside?

If for some reason you are still on the fence about the severity and plain bizarreness of the former Prime Minister's actions, you can simply look to members of his own party and at what they said. The member for Maranoa, when asked about the secret ministries of the former Prime Minister, said, 'If you have a cabinet government, you must trust your cabinet,' and that it was the Prime Minister's job to create an environment where those decisions could be made, not just on his own. The member for McPherson went further and said that the former Prime Minister's behaviour was unacceptable and that she was 'concerned about the impacts of this going forward'.

Even members of his own party recognised that our democratic institutions were being trampled and saw the need to rectify and take responsibility for it. The last bit is important—taking responsibility for. Those on the other side should be apologising to the Australian people about (a) what happened, what the member for Cook did, and (b) how they stood by and let it happen. None of them have come out and said that it's time to go.

I am in total agreeance with the observations that the member for McPherson made about the ordeal—that the former Prime Minister 'needs to resign and he needs to leave government'. That statement should be read every single day. Every single day we should be reminded of the crooked actions that were taken by the former Prime Minister that left his colleagues in the lurch.

His flatmate, Josh Frydenberg, the Treasurer, was his mate and sidekick. Yet he was shafting him from behind by appointing himself as Treasurer and not giving him the decency to even acknowledge that.

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