Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, this is from the Sydney Morning Herald, Senator Carr. This is the paper that you continuously quote as an authority on just about everything. It is not the Australian, which you denigrate as often as you can. This is the Sydney Morning Herald investigative reporter, and he raises some questions that I think those of us who like transparency and accountability would like to see answered.

On that line of accountability and transparency, this bill has good intentions, but I think it is defective, and for that reason the government will not be supporting the bill as it is. Items 2 and 3 of Senator Ludwig's bill remove the option for an agency or minister to publish details of how information may be obtained rather than the information itself. Senator Ludwig stated that this amendment was designed to provide the public with easy access to documents, but what it will actually do is remove the flexibility where the information cannot be readily published on a website to provide details on how the information can be accessed.

The current flexibility ensures that there is no impediment for those who are interested in accessing the particular information while at the same time not imposing an onerous administrative burden on the agency. It may not be straightforward for an agency or minister to publish some documents in accessible formats on a disclosure log or to convert documents to such formats within 10 working days. This may be an issue, for example, if information has been redacted from a document or if voluminous documents are available only in hardy copy or in a PDF format. Removing the flexibility will impose an administrative burden on agencies and ministerial offices in preparing documents for publication within the 10 working days of the information being released. This could create challenges for agencies and ministers in managing increased FOI workload and could impact on processing FOI requests. That is one reason why we do not support this; there are others, but I do not think my time is going to allow me to go through them. I am sure senators who follow me in this debate will elaborate on some of them.

Again I go back to the broad principle of accountability—making information available to senators and members of the House and, through them, to the public at large through freedom-of-information requests. One of the best ways we can get information for senators and members in this chamber is the committee process, which in the Senate has been built up and refined over the years and is generally well regarded. But, of late, that process where senators can get information has been thrown into disrepute. Senator Ludwig is on a committee where Labor and the Greens have a four to two majority, but they have set down a hearing of this committee on a day they know the only two government members of that committee will not be available. That means the ability of senators in this chamber to get information and to establish accountability of public officials is limited. By a deliberate act of Senator Ludwig, Senator Collins, Senator Bilyk and the chair, Senator Wright, from the Greens political party they have set these important hearings down, with one days notice, on a day they know the two coalition members will not be there.

I am one of those two coalition members, I am deputy chair of the committee, but no-one had the courtesy to raise with me the possibility of a hearing tomorrow when this meeting was proposed just yesterday. Of course, I will be in Cairns supporting the Prime Minister when he launches the government's white paper on northern development, a very major step forward for Northern Australia. Everyone who read the papers over the week knew that was on, and the Labor Party would have understood that I would not be available all day tomorrow. And Senator Reynolds, the other member of that committee, has a longstanding commitment with another committee she is on, the defence committee, at the Amberley Air Force base in Brisbane. Again, members of the Labor Party would know about that. But, knowing that the two government members would not be available tomorrow, they have deliberately set down the hearings for a day they know government members will not be there. That makes a mockery of the system of Senate committees, which are all about achieving accountability and transparency.

I might leave my remarks there. Again I suggest to the mover of the motion that, if he is interested in accountability and transparency, he would be better off changing the decision of the committee he is on to set down a hearing for a day when no government senator can be available. I know it is a Greens-Labor decision. We have even suggested that the times of that meeting could be changed to accommodate another coalition senator who might have been able to leave another meeting early to be there. Of course, the Labor Party and the Greens were not interested in that. With a chair like Senator Wright, it is all about her convenience—as for transparency and accountability, who cares? So I am concerned about that.

Senator Ludwig, I admire the thoughts behind the bill we are debating. But, again, you would be doing a greater service to the nation if you could get Mr Shorten to be a little bit more transparent and a little bit more accountable for that $300,000 payment said to have been made to the union he ran to give a commercial company a $100 million saving. Those are the real issues of accountability that I would prefer Senator Ludwig to address rather than amendments which are technically not appropriate. Senator Ludwig, I have indicated one of the reasons and, as the debate goes on, my colleagues will demonstrate other reasons why this amendment bill should not be supported in the parliament.