Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will probably pick up in more or less the same vein as Senator Cormann. People by now are probably quite well aware of the issue that is at stake here, and that is what we do when the executive and one of the chambers of parliament disagree about whether it is in the public interest that particular material be tabled and put into the public domain. We have processes under freedom of information legislation that apply to journalists or members of the general public who are seeking to get information, but what happens when one of the chambers of the parliament is seeking information and a minister of the Crown decides that it is not appropriate for it to be handed over? At the moment the remedies that the parliament can pursue are actually quite severe. In Victoria, for example, ministers have been prevented from entering the chamber and it has become a bit of a debacle.

The remedies that the Senate can choose to pursue are equally severe, but I am not aware of any instances in which either house of parliament has, when push has come to shove, used its considerable powers to compel a minister to hand over a document or suffer some kind of sanction. We do have that ability. It is just, to my knowledge, unheard of that such a motion would be passed by the chamber. What eventually happens in practice is that the parliament backs down. We have seen documents—in the case of the NBN, a couple that I have been tracking most closely; Senator Cormann has a number and the Greens have a number of others—that ministers might have quite legitimate reasons to preclude from putting into the public domain, but we have to take their word for it. On no occasion that I am aware of has parliament pushed the issue and said, ‘No, hand those documents over or suffer some kind of sanction.’

This is quite a sensible proposal. Senator Cormann is referring to something that has been operating in the New South Wales parliament for 10 years or so relatively well. It has not been without problems but it has worked. It has not worked very well in Victoria because the executive—and maybe the new Victorian state government will have a different view—has opposed the idea of an independent umpire. When we are deadlocked, when we make an order for production and the minister says, ‘You can’t have it,’ our proposal is that the matter be referred off to the Information Commissioner, a newly established office, to make the call and then both sides of the argument would respect that call. But the parliament will not pursue its remedies if it turns out that, in the view of the Information Commissioner, it is in the public interest that the material not be disclosed either in full or in part.

We think that proposal is entirely sensible. We would be willing to respect the role of the umpire if the system is set up appropriately. I trust now that, on the basis of a negotiation signed between the Australian Greens and the Prime Minister, the government feels the same way. It is ironic that Senator Cormann, who puts these arguments with quite a degree of clarity and obviously great sincerity, comes from a tradition of a government that turned its back on just such an initiative for the previous 13 years. It is not that this is a secretive government; it is that government is secretive. It does not really matter who is in the chair. It does not really matter who is on the ministerial benches. The executive will seek to preclude this information for reasons understood by themselves. I believe it is the job of the rest of the parliament, when we feel it is in the public interest for this material to be produced, to do so. It is not something that has to do with the Labor Party or the Liberal Party or whoever. If we had had Green government for the last century, perhaps we would be running the same argument as was run by the major parties. No, Senator Siewert disagrees with that, but perhaps I am just a little more cynical.