Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is amazing that you are representing all of these people here tonight and the issue is one of transparency. As Senator Cormann has clearly pointed out, we do not get transparency at all—not at all. The answer to your question is that $72 billion is now nominated in ‘other’. For the life of us on this side, we cannot get any information out of you, even though the due date has passed for that to be given back to us via Treasury.

It just does not matter what we ask; we do not get the answers anymore on this side of the chamber. Seventy two billion dollars worth of ‘other’—how many rats and mice can you stick in a column and nominate as ‘other’? When I was an accountant, if someone stuck more than $1,000 in ‘other items’ you would analyse it, you would pull it to pieces. In auditing, it was always a red rag to a bull. But you in this government have $72 billion in ‘other’ and you will not tell the Australian nation what actually makes up ‘other’. We are asking—Senator Cormann is asking—for a sense of transparency.

I know that it seems mysterious that the Australian people might want a little bit more information than you are currently giving them. And you are here tonight telling us that you are going to give to us tomorrow what we have been asking for from Treasury for four or five months. What is the Labor Party’s problem with transparency? Why don’t you come into the chamber actually knowing your facts? Why don’t you have the people beside you who actually know the absolute basic facts?