Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. Whenever there is an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and whenever there is an opportunity to demonstrate a genuine commitment to increased transparency, this government fail. They are addicted to spending, addicted to new and increased taxes, addicted to ever-new levels of debt. But when it comes to being accountable to taxpayers about how their money is being spent by the government, the government come up with excuse after excuse as to why it supposedly cannot be done. The minister says, ‘It will have to be really small writing and nobody will be able to read it.’ I actually have a sample here. If the minister wants me to table it for his benefit, it can be done. I see that his advisers have a sample for him. Is this too small for the minister to read? Is this too small for the minister to understand how the government are spending taxpayers’ dollars? It is just an excuse.

All of us receive income tax notices of assessment on a yearly basis. There is a little bit of writing at the top of the piece of paper—I am sure that all of us in this chamber have had the same experience. It is a waste of paper really, because there is hardly any information on it. There are three lines at the top, and all you look at is how much the government has taken off you and how much you might get back because you have paid too much. And that is the end of it. There is a lot of space on that piece of paper—on the back of it in particular. If the government were serious about being open and transparent about the way it is spending taxpayers’ dollars, it could be done at absolutely minimum expense. It is a small expense in relation to the benefit to taxpayers from governments being more cautious and careful in the way they spend taxpayers’ dollars. There would obviously be a significant benefit in having a government that is more accountable about the way taxpayer dollars are spent across the many services of government.

This government incurs more and more debt every day. Of course it does not want to be accountable about that. It wants to keep that hidden. It is so complicated to find that figure, as Senator Joyce has just mentioned to the chamber. It takes members of parliament months to get information out of this government. We are members of parliament; we are supposed to be able to ask questions and get answers. We are supposed to be able to get information from this government, but we are not able to get it. We need a law passed by this parliament which requires the government to be accountable about the way it spends taxpayers’ dollars and about what the net debt position is on a yearly basis. Australians deserve to know how the net debt position that is imposed on them by this government tracks from financial year to financial year. Australian people deserve to know how much they have to pay through their taxes every year to service that debt. People deserve to know how much money has to go into servicing that debt. That is money that cannot be spent on health, education, defence and all of the other important services that are provided by governments.

The reality is: this government does not want people to know. This government has got a lip-service commitment to increase openness and transparency when really this is a very secretive government. This government is more secretive now than it was when Kevin Rudd was the Prime Minister. It was not grand when Mr Rudd was the Prime Minister, but it is worse now. As far as the commitment to openness and transparency is concerned, this government has been going backwards. Ms Gillard conceded that Kevin Rudd had lost his way, but I have got to say that she is on the way backwards when it comes to improving openness and transparency. She is probably so busy dealing with all the bushfires across government that she does not have time to deal with some of these issues. The reality is that it is time that this government started to put its money where its mouth is and supported initiatives like this that will clearly improve the accountability of government with respect to how taxpayers’ money is spent.