Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

If I understand Senator Milne’s comments correctly, we are in heated agreement. She has also—and I do not want to be provocative here—possibly spoken against her own amendment. What is being required in both these amendments is that the report, and you can only read that as ‘the full report’, be tabled within five or 14 days, depending on whether you go with Labor or the Greens. But the report would have to be tabled.

What I have been trying to say—possibly not very well, and so I will try again—is that we as a government will definitely make the findings public. We also want to make as much of the report public as possible. It is fair and reasonable to say that we will be guided by Mr Callinan. A good example was the building royal commission. A number of chapters were made public and one chapter was withheld because of prosecution and other reasons. I would imagine that if Mr Callinan’s report neatly fell into those sorts of categories—and with his judicial mind I am sure he would be able to separate and deal with those matters in an appropriate way—then that is what would happen here as well. What I do not want to do is predict what Mr Callinan might report or how he will report to government.

I think we do need to take into account the considerations that Senator Milne herself acknowledged should be, and would need to be, taken into account. Therefore just the bland amendment of saying that it has to be tabled within five days or 14 days would not cover off the sensitive areas to which Senator Milne herself has alluded. I can say and I can guarantee that this government, as always, is willing to be open and transparent, but there are considerations that sometimes militate against full disclosure, as in the case of the building royal commission. We as a government want—as does the community, of course—to get to the bottom of all the matters to ensure that that which has occurred will not occur again. In those circumstances I think everybody would be well served with as much being disclosed as possible, and that is the government’s intention.

Question negatived.