Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I think that Senator Wong is again demonstrating in her way that Labor is not fit to hold office in government in Australia. Look at the level of dysfunction on the Labor side: we have a shadow cabinet minister in Senator Carr initiating a debate, complaining about the fact that a minister has not answered questions on notice in a timely manner, and by me participating in that debate somehow I am doing something wrong. That is actually the way the parliament works: if a senator initiates a debate which under our standing orders is an open-ended debate, I am entitled to participate in that debate.

As I was saying, the chutzpah of a Labor senator who was a senior minister in the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments complaining about the lack of timeliness of answers to questions taken on notice is absolutely breathtaking. The government have a strong and proud record of answering questions, answering them properly, providing information and making sure that we follow the procedures of the Senate when, for very good public interest reasons, certain information is not able to be put into the public domain.

I contrast our track record of providing timely and high-quality answers to questions from Labor senators with that of the previous government. I used to sit on that side, as you might recall, Mr President, pursuing the then Labor government over the modelling that they had initiated through Treasury and various other agencies of government into their Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and subsequently their carbon tax. I am waiting to this day to get answers to those questions. We put orders for the production of documents on the table, we passed them through the Senate, we put questions on notice at Senate estimates, we set up Senate inquiries asking questions in the vain hope that we might be able to get an answer somewhere along the way. I am still waiting.

One of the questions that Senator Carr put on notice—I am just reading it—relates to measuring and modelling. This is what we are talking about. He is holding up the Senate, complaining about a minister not providing quick enough answers to this question. I am quoting now from Hansard. This is Senator Carr:

Can I just follow up on a question on notice. You have indicated several times, Dr Marshall, that Australia spends 75 per cent—or the US spends 25 per cent—on its measuring and modelling. How much does Australia spend, as distinct from the CSIRO; and what proportion of Australia's contribution to the measurement of climate change does the CSIRO undertake? Can you provide that on notice?

Dr Marshall said:

It is probably better if we take that one on notice. We have been searching for those numbers, and they are complicated.

They are complicated. That is what he was told on the spot during the Senate estimates hearing. Senator Carr then said:

You have used a figure several times. I would be very surprised as to what extent—let me wait. I look forward to your analysis of the comparison that Australia spends—and, by that, I mean the whole country and then a subset of that as CSIRO's contribution.

Here we have Dr Marshall explaining, right up front, that this is not easy information to identify, but of course he uses best endeavours. He says on the spot that it is not an easy piece of information to put together, that it is complicated, but he will do his best and, of course, that information will be provided as quickly as possible.

Compare and contrast that with the attempts of the then opposition, year in year out, day in day out, week in week out, month in month out, when we were asking then Gillard and Rudd Labor governments to share with the Senate the modelling information underpinning their climate change policies—the modelling information which they had at their fingertips because they had considered it when making relevant decisions but which they were keeping secret from the Australian people. They were deliberately keeping it secret from the Australian people because they knew that if it had become public the public would have been able to see even sooner that what Labor was proposing in government was not effective policy on climate change and that all it would do would be to push up the cost of living and the cost of doing business and cost jobs and investment without doing anything to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. That is why Labor in government, in absolute desperation, never ever answered that question.

Here we have a situation where many, many questions were taken on notice by the CSIRO and others during Senate estimates. The motion that we are talking about is the motion by Labor Senator Kim Carr complaining that answers to certain questions are 19 days overdue. I wish I had received answers to my questions 19 days after the deadline. That would have been a great improvement on our experience during our period in opposition.

Senator Carr also repeated a range of inaccurate assertions in relation to the government's approach to the CSIRO. In the context of this debate, to directly respond to the comments that Senator Carr made during his contribution, I would like to point out that this government is providing a record $3.1 billion of funding to the CSIRO in the 2015-16 budget forward estimates. The CSIRO have announced that there will be some realignment of activity within their climate change division, so they will now focus on climate mitigation and abatement—that is, on tackling the problem. Labor were pursuing this ideological agenda of taxing more because they wanted to spend more, and they wanted to dress up that taxing more as effective action on climate change. The truth was that it was just good old-fashioned Labor socialism—taxing more to spend more—and even then, because the taxes were not enough, they were spending more than they were able to afford. That is, of course, why Labor left a track record of debt and deficit as far as the eye can see.

It is important to note that advice from the CSIRO is that there will be no net job losses overall across the CSIRO agency, and that all staff entitlements will be fulfilled. Contrast that with what Senator Carr said during estimates on 3 June 2008, in relation to Labor cutting the CSIRO budget:

…the government has made the budgetary decision. The implementation issues are matters for the CSIRO and the board. The CSIRO board has to sign off on these decisions.

That is, to translate that, 'Nothing to do with me.' That is what Senator Carr said when he was asked questions about the impact on the CSIRO of budget cuts by the Labor government that he was a part of: 'Nothing to do with me; nothing to see here. It's all a matter for them.' We are taking responsibility and being accountable.

The truth is: under our government, there have been no changes to funding. Any suggestion that funding arrangements were the result of changes to the CSIRO budget is incorrect. The CSIRO is undertaking a consultation process with its staff over the next few weeks, and it will be seeking input from external stakeholders, as appropriate. So this is about making sure that CSIRO as an organisation is able to be more effective. One of the objectives that we pursue as a government—right across government—is that we want to ensure that taxpayer resources are deployed in the most efficient, most effective and most well-targeted way possible. That is exactly what we are doing.

The advice from the CSIRO, as I have said, is that there will be no net job losses, although there will be a realignment of activity in order to ensure that its structure reflects the changing priorities in a changing world. It is true that the proposed changes are an operational matter for the CSIRO. The CSIRO is following its normal consultation process, as is required under its enterprise agreement. I understand that the CSIRO's management is assessing the feedback from an extended consultation period in the context of its organisation priorities as well as an understanding of CSIRO's future performance against existing contracts and collaboration arrangements. The CSIRO's chief executive and executive team will then finalise the planned changes, as is appropriate. The CSIRO management, of course, considers that further significant delays in making this change would have a detrimental impact on staff, as CSIRO is unable to provide certainty to those areas that are directly impacted.

As I have indicated right at the outset, we have a Labor senator who was a senior minister in the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments come into this chamber and complain about a lack of timeliness in providing answers to questions. It clearly upset Senator Wong that he asked that question and initiated this debate that we are now engaged in. The chutzpah involved in a Labor senator complaining about a lack of information from our government when we have bent over backwards to provide answers in a timely fashion, when we have prided ourselves in providing answers in a timely fashion and when we have prided ourselves in following proper Senate procedure when it comes to claiming public interest immunity in relation to the pieces of information for which, upon reflection, it would not be in the national interest to publicly release at a particular point in time. We have prided ourselves in doing all of this, yet this senator comes in because a piece of information that was particularly complex to collect is 19 days late. Really? Is that the most important priority that Senator Carr feels that the Senate should be debating at this point in time? You really wonder!

Clearly, Senator Wong was very unhappy with Senator Carr having initiated this debate. I am not surprised. I suspect that this is a continuation of the wars that we witnessed on the Labor side of politics in the period between 2007 and 2013. What was the name of that—