Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking to support the motion to suspend standing orders, I make an observation to the

Bear in mind that I was not aware that this was going to come on at this time and I have had to rush from my office to try and make head or tail of this, but that is essentially how I understand the circumstances of this question. When I look at the document, it is a most extraordinary document indeed, because it is a document that claims public interest immunity from answering questions for this government. That is equally an unusual event and a serious event. If the government is to claim public interest immunity, the standard practice is to explain why, not just to sneak around with a document, float it about and then run off.

What we are detecting here is a pattern of deceit that has emerged since this government was elected. This was a government that, in opposition, chose to go on every news program it could find, on every day of the week, and explain what it thought was happening on the high seas. There was not a moment when a shadow minister or an opposition spokesman would not feel the need to explain what was going on, in their opinion, on the high seas. But, upon coming to office, it now becomes a question of executive secrecy. So we went from a situation where everyone had to know, every minute of the day, about the movement of people seeking refuge in this country to a point where no-one in this country is to know. We have a circumstance where, at estimates, the government hides behind a military uniform and seeks to avoid responsibility by suggesting that no questions will be answered until a Friday briefing. You go to a Friday briefing and journalists find: 'We can't answer that. You'll have to wait till next Friday.' It is a most extraordinary set of arrangements, whereby a government seeks to hide behind the military and do exactly the opposite to what they did just three months ago.

Not once when we were in government—I asked this direct question at estimates—was the advice tendered by the officials that providing information to the public about people seeking refuge in this country was aiding and abetting people smugglers. That is the claim: if you ask questions, you are treacherous to Australia because you are aiding and abetting people smugglers. Basic, standard information that this parliament has had a right to expect and has received for many years now becomes a matter of high public policy and defence security. So what we are talking about here is not about public interest immunity, it is about whether the government thinks that the confidence of the Australian public will undermine the integrity of Australia's migration program. For political reasons, not security reasons, the government is hiding behind a claim of public interest immunity. I think it is appropriate that the Senate does suspend standing orders to allow the minister to give a proper explanation of what this scurrilous document is really all about. The minister should make an effort to answer simple questions put by the Senate and stop treating the Senate with such contempt.