Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Okay. Leave has not been granted. What a farce! Just four days ago all 20 recommendations of the Ruddock review were leaked to the media, and yet we, as the Senate, are not able to see this report. In the meantime, of course, we have had the Labor Party and the government moving, backflipping, to reject at least one of the Ruddock review recommendations in that they are now supporting, so we are told, removing the ability for religious schools to be able to discriminate against LGBTIQ students. However, we do not know anything about the rest of the report. There is so much of this report that we need to see. We are told that the Labor Party is potentially supporting the rejection of another of the Ruddock review recommendations, and that's to end the ability for schools to discriminate against LGBTIQ staff. But we still have not seen the report.

How far have we come when, just a month ago, we had our requests for this production of the Ruddock review report rejected twice by Minister Cormann on the grounds that it was not in the public interest? How on earth can it not be in the public interest now? We have had so much that has changed—all of these backflips over the last month. A month ago, when we first moved an order for the production of documents, we were told that we were waiting impatiently for the report to be released by government but nothing was happening. Now, with that leak, with those two OPDs and with the pressure of an impending by-election, we have had these backflips, but still the government has not seen fit to comply with an order for the production of documents to provide the document.

In his response to the previous two OPDs and in his answer to a question by Senator Pratt today, the minister is still insisting: (a) this document should not be released because of cabinet confidentiality; and (b) it's not in the public interest to release it. On the first of those, it doesn't even appear that this document has been to cabinet. The minister is being very tricky in saying that, because the report has been submitted to the government, it is, therefore, a cabinet document. This does not fit the grounds as to what a cabinet document is. It should not be grounds; otherwise, almost any document could be considered to be a document subject to cabinet confidentiality. Second, it's whether releasing it is not in the public interest. Clearly, it is in the public interest now for this document to be released. Where we have got the backflips going on, where we have got a government talking about introducing legislation and where we have got recommendations of this review being rejected by government and the Labor Party, it has to be in the public interest for us to see not just the 20 recommendations that have been leaked to the media but the full body of the Ruddock report.

It is particularly important that we see it before the Wentworth by-election, so the voters of Wentworth know where the government stand and know where they are heading as to whether they want to increase discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender diverse and intersex people. It is important that the community sees this, because we know some of those recommendations that were leaked last Friday are extremely worrying. We need to know the background of those recommendations. There is worrying terminology in recommendations 15 and 16, which recommend amending legislation to protect not just religious belief but also religious activity as a protected attribute in our antidiscrimination law. How far is that being considered? Religious activity could be an awful lot of stuff and include a huge amount of extra discrimination against LGBTI people. Recommendation 20 says that the Commonwealth Attorney-General should take leadership of the issues identified in the report and that consideration should be given to further Commonwealth legislative solutions if required.

We need to see the discussion that is included in this Ruddock review. We need to see the whole report. There are no grounds for the government to be withholding it from the Senate, the Australian community or, in particular, the voters of Wentworth, who are going to the polls on Saturday.