Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the suspension. This is a government that has only been in power for a short time, but it has clearly established its modus operandi for the future. That is, one fundamentally based on secrecy and fundamentally based on holding back from the Senate, the House of Representatives, the parliament in general and the public any issue that they deem is not appropriate for the public to know about.

To do what Senator Cash did here today—simply stand up and claim public interest immunity without giving any reasons under the standing orders for why she did that—is unacceptable. Senator Cash has an obligation to outline why she is claiming public interest immunity, why she is behaving in a manner that is about secrecy and why this government is continuing to use secrecy as the basis for their operation in this parliament.

It is quite clear from what some of the media are saying that they are onto this government. James Massola maintains that the new coalition government has established an early and unwelcome habit of shutting down debates it does not want to have. On the muzzling of ministers from speaking spontaneously to the media by the PM's office, Michelle Grattan observed that it was the ultimate 'get stuffed'. Annabel Crabb asked:

If a boat is turned around, and nobody is told about, it did it happen at all?

The doyen of the press gallery, Laurie Oakes, has been particularly scathing of the abrasive and arrogant tone of immigration minister Scott Morrison towards the media when he is pressed for details on asylum seekers. Mark Kenny said:

It is jarring to see how quickly the public's reasonable expectations of probity in its political representatives has been superseded by the reflex to secrecy and self-protection in the new political class.

I go back to the issue of secrecy and why secrecy is there. Annabel Crabb said:

If a boat is turned around, and nobody is told about it, did it happen at all?

I say to Annabel Crabb: all you have to do is go back to the evidence in estimates from the Maritime Authority, who basically said that people smugglers who have access to sophisticated radios know exactly what is happening. So dragging the defence department and the military into this cover-up and secrecy is an abomination of the democratic processes in this parliament and in this country. To hide behind a military uniform, on the basis that you are not going to tell people what is happening on the basis of secrecy and operational procedures, is an absolute nonsense.

The Maritime Authority told estimates that when a boat is in trouble they put out a general call to all seafarers saying that there is a problem, that that boat should be rescued and that, under their international obligations, they should rescue that boat. I asked the question, 'When that notice goes out, does that then mean that the position of the boats and the fact that there is a problem become public?' Their answer to me was. 'Yes, it does'. Provided you have a radio and provided you can tune in and pick it up, you know exactly what is happening. So it is an absolute nonsense for the coalition to be running this argument that you need to close down information to the public, to the press and to the parliament. That is the modus operandi of this coalition. It is about secrecy. It is about arrogance. It is about saying, 'We know better than everyone else and we are not going to give any information to the parliament to let them make decisions on our behaviour.' Well, the public are onto the coalition. The press are onto the coalition. You have had a very bad start. Secrecy is no excuse. (Time expired)