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

by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) and (2) together:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 3), omit "2,".

(2) Schedule 2, page 17 (lines 1 to 10), omit the Schedule.

These amendments remove schedule 2 of the bill.

What does schedule 2 do? Schedule 2 provides an exemption for the Future Fund from FOI laws 'in relation to documents in respect of the investment activities'. So it seeks to keep secret how the Future Fund is spending public money. The explanatory memorandum goes on to say that this is to reduce the risk of the Future Fund 'disclosing highly sensitive commercial and proprietary material' given to it by private investment managers. It says that the current application of FOI laws:

… presents the risk of negative impacts on investment outcomes, reduced access to investment opportunities and it could also prejudice investment managers in their dealing with other market participants.

Apparently, the current application of Australia's FOI laws to the Future Fund is the weak link in global capital markets that might lead to sensitive information being released and everyone losing money. What nonsense!

This introduces new protections that are completely unnecessary, and I'll come in a moment to why the government is actually moving to introduce this cover-up about how the Future Fund invests its money. But we can dispense with the so-called reason for the amendments right now, because section 47 of the FOI Act already provides government bodies, including the Future Fund, with an exemption for releasing information that would have the effect of 'disclosing trade secrets or commercially valuable information'. That's why, in its 15 years of existence, the Future Fund has never released any commercially sensitive information in response to an FOI claim. So what schedule 2 does is provide a wholesale exemption to say, 'You don't have to release any information,' when they've already got an exemption from releasing commercially sensitive information. So this is about giving them protection in saying, 'We don't have to tell you about all sorts of other information. Forget what you might hear from the government—if they bother to defend the existing bill—about how this is about so-called commercially sensitive information. What rot! They've already got that exemption. They're introducing a whole new layer of secrecy over the Future Fund with this schedule 2.

Why? Do they want to cover up where the Future Fund is investing $250 billion in public money? What is the bill really about, given that it can't be about commercially sensitive information, because they've already got that protection? It's about stopping the Future Fund—and the government, by extension—from being embarrassed about investments they have made in dodgy corporations. Schedule 2 is about hiding from the public things such as the Future Fund's investments in Adani Ports.

Last year, the Australian Centre for International Justice obtained, through FOI, documents showing that the Future Fund had invested $3.2 million of the public's money in Adani Ports. This is the same Adani Ports that struck a $290 million deal with generals in the Myanmar military to build and operate a commercial port in Yangon. Late last month, the day before the ASEAN summit—and in response to a public campaign against them, including by the likes of the Australian Centre for International Justice and their highlighting of the Future Fund's activities—Adani announced that they were walking away from this deal with the Myanmar military.

So we have a situation where public money is being invested through the Future Fund in a company that is doing deals, or wanting to do deals, with repressive authoritarian regimes like the Myanmar military. We only found out about that because of the freedom of information laws that this government now wants to remove the right for scrutiny over. In other words, we would never know that public money had been invested in a company that wants to do deals with one of the most repressive regimes in the world if it weren't for the freedom of information legislation, but now this government wants to cover it up and say you can't make freedom of information requests through the Future Fund. This is clearly about a government embarrassed because the Future Fund is making investments in dodgy corporations. (Time expired)

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you wish to seek the call again?

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

Yes, please.

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne has the call.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to 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.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My contribution will be short. Quite simply, if schedule 2 of this bill were to have the effect that the member for Melbourne said it will, I would be advocating for the Labor Party not to support it and to support the amendment put by the member for Melbourne, but it does not. There's nothing in this bill which will prevent disclosure of the fact of a holding of the Future Fund by simple observation, by a question at question time, by a Senate estimates question or by any other form in this place. Whether it holds an interest in Adani Ports, whether it holds an interest in Telstra, whether it holds an interest in any other corporation, or whether it holds any other financial interest, nothing in the bill will prevent the disclosure in this place or anywhere else of the fact of a holding. What it will do is prevent the disclosure of certain commercially sensitive information.

Let me explain why this is important. The Future Fund does not just buy interests in other commercial entities and other investments; it sells them as well. Like every other investment fund in the country, it doesn't just buy them; it sells them as well. If you are a counterparty to a transaction with a government body and you want to get inside information on the value of a particular holding that you're interested in purchasing, you could engage a commercial investment adviser to kick the tyres on that particular investment and do all sorts of normal processes that you might do in a non-transaction due diligence process, or you could, under the existing laws, conduct a freedom of information request, which could disclose a whole range of commercially sensitive and prejudicial information to the vendor of an asset on the sell-side transaction.

It is for this reason that we did not support a proposition put by the government which would have applied to every private sector registered superannuation fund in the country, except themselves, in what was known as the portfolio disclosure holding proposition, which was intended by the government to be introduced by way of regulation. We did not support that and we said to the government, 'We will not support this proposition if you're going to have one law for yourself but another law for every registered superannuation entity in the country.' We actually happen to support the proposition contained within the current bill before the House, which is perfectly commercial. We had big questions as to why they would try and treat every other private sector superannuation entity differently to the way they are proposing to treat themselves.

That is the background to the Labor Party's position on this bill. The government changing its wrongheaded position on the portfolio holding disclosure proposition and bringing it into line with what will now apply to the Future Fund is the reason we are willing to support this proposition for the bill. So I stress again: if the effect of schedule 2 in this bill were as outlined by the member for Melbourne, we would not be supporting it, but it isn't. Nothing within this bill will prevent disclosure of the fact of the holding or an investment by the Future Fund or any of its associated entities, but it will prevent a counterparty in a commercial transaction using freedom-of-association laws to get an advantage over what is essentially the Australian taxpayer in a transaction which involves the sale of an asset held by the Future Fund. That is why we will not be supporting the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne.

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

In response to that point, which I presume to be the government's argument as well: if that were right, there would have been a slew of FOI applications being made right up until now that would have disadvantaged parties and disadvantaged the Future Fund and its investments, and I would imagine that there would have been put before this parliament a string of examples of what the opposition and government considered to be FOI abuses. It hasn't happened. It hasn't happened for the simple reason that there is already an exemption from disclosing commercially sensitive information under the Freedom of Information Act.

The fact that none of those things have happened suggests that the government in fact has a very different motive for moving this set of amendments, and that is to introduce a whole new layer of secrecy in the Future Fund, and that should be opposed.

Andrew Wallace (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendments moved by the member for Melbourne be disagreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

There being fewer than five members on the side of the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. The names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

Question agreed to, Mr Bandt, Dr Haines, Ms Steggall and Mr Wilkie voting no.

The question now is that this bill be agreed to.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

As there are fewer than five members on the side for the noes in this division, I declare the question resolved in the affirmative in accordance with standing order 127. Again, the names of those members who are in the minority will be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings.

Question agreed to, Mr Bandt and Mr Wilkie voting no.

Bill agreed to.