Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

excited about the show itself to commit the title to memory. Additionally, there must have been discussions this morning about not proceeding with this bill as a result of that contribution to the public this week. Fortunately, without freedom of information, we did finally get a bit of transparency and it was good to see that many of your colleagues gave valuable time to provide the support footage in the exercise.

It is also interesting that the architect presented—and I know Senator Ludwig is currently sitting up in his office watching my contribution, because I am told that he does that frequently. But to have Senator Ludwig take a point in relation to matters that are underpinned by assertions that this government is anything but transparent is a remarkable choice. I will be watching as this contribution goes through to the end and Senator Ludwig finally puts his foot on the sticky paper as to what the actual motive for this is.

Firstly, I am a very proud member of a coalition government that is not just transparent but the need for people to seek information from this government is less than any government before it. We go and we tell the people exactly what we are going to do and then we stick by our promises to the absolute letter. So the need for people to access information from the Abbott government through the medium of freedom of information is much less than is required by others.

I digress: let me come back to the choice of Senator Ludwig as the architect, author and presenter of this bill on behalf of the Labor Party and their coalition partners, the Greens. I would love to have a discussion and a debate with Senator Ludwig about transparency after his contribution to the Queensland inquiry. Let's roll that down from the start: the Queensland inquiry was presented to the members of this place for support so that we could be very probative on issues to do, in this case, with the Queensland government.

Let's talk about transparency. The first thing that Senator Ludwig did in those circumstances was to ensure that this thrust for transparency and to gather information so as we could make a determination about the behaviour of the Queensland government did not extend and in fact was time barred for the administrations of the Labor Party in my home state of Queensland. Imagine that: the first test of transparency was confined only to someone else other than the Australian Labor Party. This is the author of your bill; this is the champion of transparency and adjustments to the freedom of information bill to ensure that people can access information.

Using his votes and the votes of your Senator Ketter on that inquiry, they absolutely stifled the ability of coalition senators who were on the inquiry to bring particular witnesses before the inquiry. For example, Senator Bullock, I am happy, if you are have got five minutes afterwards—I have got a couple of teabags there—for you to come round. We will throw a bit of hot water on them, and I will go through this for you point by point.

The fact of the matter is we wanted particular witnesses before that inquiry, so let's talk about transparency. For example, we wanted Mr Palmer, who was at the heart of applications; yet, Senator Ludwig supported in that case the chair of the committee—then a member of PUP—by using their numbers to block the ability for us to examine particular witnesses, including Mr Palmer. This is a transparency discussion, and I was so excited to see this on the 'Red' today, because it gives me an opportunity to give voice to some of these issues.

Recently we have seen colleagues on the other side use whatever measure they possibly can with the scheduling of committee inquiries and committee meetings in this place to ensure that no members of the coalition are available—measures such as short notice. In the last 48 hours one of the committees that I am involved in has set dates for hearings tomorrow, with the full knowledge that some of the witnesses are not available and most of the coalition senators who have some corporate knowledge of the issue are also not available.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

I know that Senator Bilyk is particularly sensitive to this issue.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

Senator, you should just sit quietly while I give you your spoonful of olive oil.