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

Senator Pratt, I used to be on your side. Do you know what? We are providing much more information than your government ever did. We are providing explanations. When we do not provide information because it is not in the public interest to do so, we explain the public harm that would be caused by the release of that information and we point to a specific public interest immunity ground as to why we are not releasing certain information. The then Treasurer Wayne Swan never did us that courtesy, ever. He never did us that courtesy, ever. I could give you a conga line of Labor ministers in the Rudd and Gillard governments, supported and backed up by the Greens, who always folded when it came to a head, who always folded in the face of Labor ministers, on things like the mining tax and the carbon tax. The Greens would be side by side with us in opposition, saying, 'We need more information.' When it came to the crux, when it came to the pointy end, when it came to putting something behind it, when it came to a proposal that I put to Senator Brown, who was the leader of the Greens at the time, that as a Senate we should refuse to deal with the mining tax legislation until such time as the government complied with providing relevant information, he went to water. Of course, everything that we predicted in relation to that particular tax in the lead-up to it being legislated, with the support of the Greens, has ultimately come true.

The Greens will never like the Perth Freight Link project. It could be objectively identified with a PhD thesis going over 1,000 pages explaining why this is the best thing that has ever happened in infrastructure in Western Australia and still Senator Ludlam would not be supporting it. So this is just a complete waste of the Senate's time. We know why the Labor Party is supporting this. The Labor Party in Western Australia is quite desperate for Greens preferences in these inner city areas of Perth. They are very scared of the Greens, and that is of course why they come here, into the Senate, quite weak and support an outrageous motion like this.

It is consistent with the practice of governments of both political persuasions. We as a government have provided as much information in response to all of these orders as we can. We are not in a position to provide the additional unredacted information that was sought by the order of the Senate yesterday, and that is because it would impose commercial harm on Australia. It would also harm relations between the Commonwealth and a state government—namely, the state government of Western Australia. Some of the information that has been sought in these various orders is not information that is our information. They are WA government cabinet-in-confidence documents. I am sure that even the Labor Party would agree that it would not be appropriate for a federal government to release cabinet-in-confidence information that is actually owned by the Western Australia government.

I table the document that I quoted from in relation to the factual information circulated in Western Australia.