Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—There is a very simple issue at stake here, and that is the right of the nation to be informed through its Senate committee system as against so-called commercial rights. We are here in the service of the nation. I did not hear in the government’s statement, if there is a commercial component, if there is money to be lost by the people who hold this information, an offer to facilitate the matter by paying so that the Senate can get the information. This time-honoured falling back on commercial-in-confidence as a reason for depriving Senate committees, of all things, of information that is crucial to their deliberations does not wash. The Senate committees should have that information made available, and if the government believes that there is a commercial consideration in the way it should facilitate the payment of whatever that commercial consideration is to ensure that the Senate gets the information that it requires; otherwise, it should support the committee getting that information instead of obstructing it, as we have heard here today.