Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In relation to the first of those ministerial statements, I will give Senator Faulkner his due. He has attempted in some way to restore some transparency into the system after a fairly inauspicious start. I might say, however, that he is in some respects the white knight that has been splattered in mud from those around him. While I will accept that the minister is genuine in his endeavours in relation to this, this is very much a self-serving statement in relation to what allegedly has been achieved in this portfolio over the last 12 months. Fortunately, all other ministers have not provided a self-serving statement such as that. Having said that, I acknowledge that the minister has attempted to achieve some goals. It is those around him, quite frankly, who have let him down. There is no point in having a white knight in relation to openness and transparency if the white knight is constantly compromised by those around him.

While his document clearly articulated what he believed were the upsides of things that had been achieved in his portfolio, I do not need to remind the minister of the lack of openness and lack of transparency in a number of ministerial offices. Of course, that starts in the Prime Minister’s own office. It finished in the office of Parliamentary Secretary McKew. I do not need to remind the minister—nor do I need to remind the Senate—about the deplorable events earlier this year, when a job was effectively given out of the Prime Minister’s office to the partner of a ministerial staffer. Others in the chamber will know that it has quite rightly been called ‘the CMAX affair’. Senator Faulkner, in a self-serving document—though I acknowledge there has been some movement forward—failed to tell the Senate that the slippage in relation to action regarding the CMAX affair was quite deplorable. The action in relation to the Parliamentary Secretary McKew matter was quite deplorable. I will be interested to see what the outcome is when the Auditor-General’s report is released.

What Senator Faulkner must go into at the end of the year is acknowledging that the standards he has ostensibly set for those around him—for other ministers, including the Prime Minister—have failed abysmally. There is no point putting out ministerial statements that are effectively of what the minister might have wanted to achieve through the year but which, in actual fact, was not delivered. I acknowledge that it was not the minister who did not deliver it; it was not delivered by other ministers, who failed the test of openness and transparency.

I take this opportunity to also refer to the matter of their pre-election promise on government advertising. Before the last election, Kevin Rudd and Labor released a document called Cleaning up government, where they boldly claimed:

Labor will end the abuse of Government advertising. All ad campaigns in excess of $250,000 will be vetted—

and I repeat the word ‘vetted’—

by the Auditor General or their designate.

But the government’s advertising guidelines, released on 2 July this year, make no such reference to the power of the Auditor-General to vet the proposed advertising. So what we saw in the pre-election document and what we saw in the final document were, of course, two entirely different things. It suited the government in the election campaign to talk about these things, but when they got into government they then changed their minds. Despite the openness and transparency that was preached prior to the election, when it came to the crunch, the rhetoric did not match the actions.

The other matter that I want to refer to and to which the minister referred earlier—I will not take up much more than another minute; I am aware of the time constraints—is Public Service ethics and an independent committee, I think; I did not catch the full comment.