Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to amend general business notice of motion No. 451 standing in my name for today relating to the failure to provide information relating to the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I also seek leave to make a brief statement before asking that it be taken as a formal motion and before seeking leave to table a document.

Leave granted.

I gave notice of this motion yesterday. It is a motion about the government’s complete disregard of successive orders of the Senate ordering the government to release important modelling information about the impact of its flawed CPRS on the economy and jobs and about the government’s refusal to answer correspondence from a committee of the Senate for nearly three months. After I gave notice of this motion yesterday I finally received a response from the Treasurer to letters from the Select Committee on Fuel and Energy of 18 March and 3 April. That response was hand-delivered to my office at 10 past six last night.

The government has been ducking and weaving for eight or nine months now, trying to refuse to release information that is very important to scrutinise the impact of the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme on the economy and jobs. They have been ducking and weaving, coming up with excuse after excuse—such as contractual obligations, confidentiality requirements and commercial harm. The committee has addressed that in good faith every step of the way. Monash University, which was one of the external consultants used by the Treasury and which was used as an excuse for not releasing information, has advised both the Select Committee on Fuel and Energy and the Treasurer that they were happy to waive confidentiality requirements. They advised the committee that they were keen to assist our committee scrutinising the information in every possible way.

The government are running out of excuses. They are trying to cover this up. The reason they are trying to cover this up is that clearly the modelling was as flawed as the scheme itself. They are trying to con the Australian people. They do not want the Australian people to know what the true impact of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is going to be—either on the environment in terms of a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions or on the economy and jobs. It is an absolute disgrace the way this government has treated the Senate and its committees by not responding to proper requests for information in a timely fashion. I move the motion as amended:

That the Senate notes with concern:

(a)

that the Select Committee on Fuel and Energy has been seeking unsuccessfully to gain information from the Government regarding the modelling undertaken by the Department of the Treasury titled, Australia’s Low Pollution Future: The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation, since December 2008;

(b)

the following history of the Government’s refusal to provide the information needed to properly scrutinise the Government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme:

(i)

the committee wrote to the Treasurer on 9 December 2008 seeking additional information about the modelling,

(ii)

the committee eventually received a response from the Treasurer on 3 February 2009 refusing the committee’s request stating ‘The Treasury is obligated, under contractual agreements … to not disclose or make public any Confidential Information of the other party’,

(iii)

on 4 February 2009 the Senate made an order requiring the production of information by 5 February 2009,

(iv)

on 5 February 2009, Senator the Honourable Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector, made a statement in the Senate on behalf of the Government that the ‘Treasury is obligated, under contractual agreements … to not disclose or make public any confidential information of the other party’,

(v)

the committee again wrote to the Treasurer on 6 February 2009 pointing out that the Senate in passing the order of 4 February 2009, had accepted the judgement of the committee that contractual obligations to consultants did not constitute a valid reason for declining to produce documents because parliamentary privilege overrides any contractual obligations,

(vi)

Senator Stephens made another statement in the Senate on behalf of the Government on 11 February 2009, attempting to make a new and different case of commercial harm,

(vii)

following the response from the Government, the committee wrote to Monash University and Purdue University on 11 February 2009 seeking to work with the universities to protect the intellectual property of the universities while allowing the committee to properly scrutinise the material,

(viii)

on 12 February 2009 the committee received correspondence from Purdue University stating that commercial harm to its Global Trade and Analysis Project, would be avoided by the simple purchase of a licence,

(ix)

on 19 February 2009 the committee received correspondence from Monash University which stated that ‘The University wishes to assist your Committee in every way possible’,

(x)

on 11 March 2009, the Senate made a further order requiring the production of information by 13 March 2009 and specifying that some of the requested information was to be treated as confidential, meaning that any disclosure or use of the information otherwise than in accordance with the order would be a contempt of the Senate and a criminal offence under the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987,

(xi)

on 12 March 2009 the committee again wrote to Monash University informing it of the Senate’s order of 11 March 2009 and seeking to establish whether the protections afforded by the Senate sufficiently protected the university’s intellectual property in relation to the Monash Multi Regional Forecasting model,

(xii)

on 17 March 2009 Senator Stephens made a further statement to the Senate in response to the Senate order of 11 March 2009, in which she stated ‘the government continues to believe that the provision of the proprietary model code and data related to the modelling conducted for Australia’s low pollution future: the economics of climate change mitigation would cause commercial harm to organisations that were contracted to assist Treasury’,

(xiii)

the committee received further correspondence from Monash University on 18 March 2009 attaching a letter the university had sent to the Treasurer which stated that ‘Monash University waives its requirements of confidentiality on the basis that confidentiality is protected under the provisions of Order SJ61-11 March 2009’,

(xiv)

following receipt of the 18 March 2009 correspondence from Monash University, the committee wrote to the Treasurer on 18 March 2009 once again requesting the relevant information and reiterating the committee’s judgement ‘that contractual obligations to consultants do not constitute a valid reason for declining to produce information’ and pointing out that ‘given the information is required under an order of the Senate, parliamentary privilege overrides any relevant contractual obligations of the government’,

(xv)

the committee heard evidence from the Department of the Treasury on 2 April 2009 stating that it was the Government’s position that ‘there is potential for commercial harm for aspects of the information to be provided’, and

(xvi)

following this evidence provided by the Department of the Treasury, and in the absence of a response to the Treasurer’s letter of 18 March 2009, the committee again wrote to the Treasurer on 3 April 2009 seeking the information as ordered by the Senate on 11 March 2009 and stating that the committee views the response from the Government and the Department of the Treasury ‘as unnecessarily bureaucratic, baseless and deliberately unhelpful to the Committee’;

(c)

that the committee has gone to considerable lengths and provided robust protections to accommodate any issues of potential commercial harm to Monash University and Purdue University;

(d)

that the Treasurer responded to the committee’s letters of 18 March 2009 and 3 April 2009 only after notice of motion for this resolution was given on 16 June 2009;

(e)

that the Government has failed to provide any information to the committee despite the considerable efforts taken by the committee to avoid any commercial harm, and the Government’s claim of commercial harm only applying to some of the information sought; and

(f)

that the Government has failed to provide any explanation to the Senate or the committee as to why the remainder of the information was not provided or responded to the fact that Monash University has informed both the committee and the Treasurer that the university is prepared to waive its requirements of confidentiality in accordance with the order of the Senate of 11 March 2009.

I seek leave to table a letter from the Treasurer.

Leave granted.

Question agreed to.