Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I suppose we need to still have some humour in this, although it is not very funny with some of the poor processes that the Greens have allowed to occur. The minister stands here and wanders between the appropriate processes of the coalition and the appropriate processes of government, and he refuses to cover a very important issue, which is that a joint parliamentary committee makes its recommendations at roughly 9.05, and by 10.08, through means that the minister cannot describe other than that he chatted with a few colleagues, we have the minister announcing that the government has considered the issues raised and the recommendations of the joint standing committee to introduce a form of optional preferential voting below the line.

As the minister says, I have been a member of the cabinet and I have been around this place a long time. Unlike some, Minister, I do not accept that you are Superman. I am more likely to accept the musings that were on Antony Green's blog, which were that the government had a predetermined position on this, that the bill as it was introduced in the House was actually their ambit position, and that they were thinking that they would back down to the crossbenchers and respond on below-the-line issues at a later point. The somersaults that Senator Cormann was able to do between 9.05 and 10.08 on the day that he announced the government's position—the same morning that the JSCEM report occurred—combined with the points that I made earlier about some of the recommendations, such as that the government and Green committee members seemed to have picked up policy rationales by osmosis, because they do not exist anywhere else, really do make you think this whole process stinks.

The minister—and I should highlight this point—is not prepared to advise the committee when he sought advice from his department, when he had discussions with any particular people and whether this issue had been addressed by cabinet, and he retreats back to coalition processes. I am really not sure why, because he does not seem to have any respect for Labor Party processes. He wants to stand here and talk about Labor luminaries rather than a unified position of the current Labor caucus. In that respect, Minister, you are just going to have to deal with that fact. The Labor caucus is united, we have a clear position and I am here to execute that position. I am not a backroom boy. I am not Senator Conroy or Senator Dastyari. But they are the facts of life. If we have to, by virtue of this deal you have with the Greens, conduct what should be proper parliamentary consideration through a committee stage debate, possibly my colleagues would suggest that I am probably in a good position to do that. But it is a very concerning world where we are.

Perhaps now I will use the other example of this point. The other example that Senator Moore used is the second reading amendment that was voted down by the Australian Greens. There is a principle at play here that is far more important than this particular piece of legislation that the Greens have wittingly colluded with the government to trample, and that principle is public interest immunity. The Senate has upheld on countless occasions in relation to public interest immunity—and I see Senator Ludlam raising and paying attention on this point, because I know it has been a very important issue to him as well. But he may not understand, when he voted down Senator Moore's second reading amendment, exactly what was occurring there. What was occurring there was in response to my return to order. Senator Cormann had retreated to the commercial interests of the Commonwealth.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

I am talking about the commercial interests aspect at the moment, but, if you would like to make that contribution, you are welcome to. I am not suggesting that that is not part of it, but the issue of principle that the Greens have colluded with—quite astoundingly—is that they have allowed you to continue to hide behind the commercial interests of the Commonwealth when asked important questions about the considerations of this bill. All that Senator Moore was seeking was that you be required to outline what harm was being claimed. That is all. What was the particular harm that would occur to the public interests by you responding to that return to order? It is a pretty routine matter. Many times over the years in this place I have been here ministers have sought to hide behind commercial interests. Senator Ludlam might be able to give me an example—I cannot think of one at hand—where the Senate response to that has been to require that the minister at least indicate the harm that they are proposing might occur. But on this occasion—the first that I can think of—the Greens have colluded with the government and ensured that they do not even need to put before the Senate what the harm is that they are proposing might come forward.

I can only hypothesise here—and I know even some in the media have also—but the types of harm are issues related to transparency. For example, in The West Australian on 7 March, after some people had an opportunity to look at the limited information that the minister provided in a highly redacted form, there was a story from Paul Osborne talking about his concerns about AEC funding. I know Senator Rhiannon had an interest in a few matters, but none of those concerns seem to have been resolved, so I will be interested to see if she eventually attempts to press on any of these matters.

Minister, in your first reading contribution, you said—that must have been the 2014 recommendation, because I do not recall it from the 2016 one—'The JSCEM recommended that additional resources be provided to the AEC to educate voters on changes,' and you said, 'We are allocating additional resources to the AEC.' It seems—at least to date—the Greens are satisfied with that assurance, but nobody else is. They have not been required to indicate the nature of the additional resources, where those funds are going to come from, how the various appropriation debates we are having will actually impact on whether or not those funds will arrive in time, the timing issues associated with that or indeed the longer historical issues that Paul Osborne highlights about the funding and about what this return to order actually showed.

I will go for a moment to the return to order. Perhaps in a more casual way, it certainly is sniffy enough to suggest that we need to keep looking. I apologise in advance, Chair, if you will think of this as a prop, but I need senators to understand the highly redacted form in which this documentation was provided. Perhaps we both need to take advice from the clerks as to whether it is appropriate. I demonstrate for senators the redactions that the minister made. The first of those documents is an agenda. Item 3 is 'matters to discuss,' fully redacted. Seriously? The next page, I reckon, would come close to be about 80 per cent redacted, but even what has been provided is interesting in part. For instance, the bottom dot point on page 1 of 2 of the next document is, 'The AEC felt that the parliament expects major changes to both operation and legislation, noting that legislative change will be a challenge.' This is from the executive strategy meeting of the AEC in the Department of Finance dated 29 April 2015, I think the same date Paul Osborne was referring to some of the critical financing and resourcing issues.

In terms of us being able to understand in any way what the nature of those challenges might be—redaction, redaction and more redaction. The intriguing part to these documents when I looked at them was a different reference here. This was on the executive strategy meeting on 9 June 2015. You go to page 2 and the action items. I will be interested, Minister, if you are able to explain to us these action items, because it is really quite intriguing. Action item 1 is: 'The AEC will identify areas of JSCEM response that they should not be consulted on.' Why on earth would the AEC be identifying areas that they should not be consulted on? I could understand why they would identify areas that they should be consulted on. But what was the minister trying to hide here?

Why on earth do we have a government agency whose independence is as important as that of the AEC, suggesting in executive minutes as an action item that 'the AEC will identify areas of the JSCEM response that they should not be consulted on'? In other words, 'Don't ask us about this!' And to finish the dot point: 'also any advice on preferred method of engagement in advance of the meeting on 24 June.' Preferred method of engagement? What are we engaged in here? This is a public agency. Preferred method of engagement from the AEC? What is going on in these executive strategy meetings? What is really occurring here?

Does that explain why so much of this needs to be redacted, or perhaps the minister can inform the committee now of the response to the question that should have been supported by the Greens in relation to the return to order, which is: what harm to the Commonwealth's commercial interests are you suggesting requires this information not be made available?