Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of today's statements from Senator Cormann on Treasurer Frydenberg and Minister Taylor in relation to the Statement of Ministerial Standards. The statement from Senator Cormann this morning has failed to address what has now become a systematic expose of the failure of ministers in this government to abide by the Prime Minister's own standards. We have to remember that the Statement of Ministerial Standards is signed off on by the Prime Minister of the day. He is responsible for enforcing those standards. The fact that he cannot—and this is the second day that we've had, really, non-responses on these questions—is a total disgrace. And Senator McAllister has been through some of the facts of today's instance.

But I think we should also remember that the public—the people to whom ministers in this government are responsible—would not be very reassured that their government is acting in a way that we might expect elected representatives to act. Yesterday we saw that former ministers Pyne and Bishop had failed to follow through on the Statement of Ministerial Standards. We actually also have that compounded, possibly, as we do today, by a minister really being mendacious in her statements around whether she had been associated with one of the companies for whom she is now working and receiving pay.

We saw last night that this government has no agenda in this 46th Parliament. We see, now, back-to-back non-responses. We see a government that acts with no oversight, no accountability, no transparency and no respect for parliamentary process and, really, is acting with a complete disdain for the Australian people.

The point of this is that, after last year's coup week and the fallout that followed, this government has to run a protection racket for these ministers. They can't afford to have any more instability, and they know it.

Why has there been no formal independent investigation into this? The government is lacking an agenda and lacking legislation to bring to the chambers; maybe what it could do is to actually follow through on the Prime Minister's own statement last year where he said that he would look at a federal integrity commission.

Obviously, that is legislation that this government is not going to bring forward, because of course it can't afford to. But, luckily for us, there are paper trails on all of this; so, even if Mr Taylor and Mr Frydenberg think that, over the next three years, they won't have a federal ICAC, the paper trail will still exist—because it will be a Labor government that introduces a federal integrity commission; it won't be this government, despite the lack of legislation that was obvious last night.

Let's just go through TheGuardian's article. These documents that The Guardian sought were found under FOI requests, so they are documents from the department itself. Mr Taylor, who was then the Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, sought meetings with departmental officials to discuss the 2016 listing that protects the natural temperate grassland of the south-eastern highlands as a critically endangered community under federal environment law. The meetings were requested in 2017, via Mr Frydenberg's office. At the same time there were state and federal investigations underway into the alleged poisoning of about 30 hectares that contained the grass species on a property, in New South Wales' Monaro region, which was owned by Jam Land Pty Ltd. Minister Taylor and his brother, Richard Taylor, are directors in that entity. There's also quite a complicated shareholding, because they also own shares in another company called Guffy—that is, the family's investment company.

Mr Taylor denied making any representations regarding the compliance action, and said he'd received a briefing in his capacity as the member for Hume for the purpose of understanding the technical aspects of the revised listing and its impact on those affected. That includes many constituents. He did neglect to say that his family company was one of those constituents so affected and, in fact, that they had unlawfully poisoned off 30 hectares of grassland. They then sought to understand that for their constituents—that is, for themselves.

Following on from lobbying by Mr Taylor, Mr Frydenberg's office then sought advice on the full extent of his ministerial powers and whether he could override the scientific advice and remove the critically endangered listing. The best bit of this is not only did they seek that; they actually sought to understand whether they could keep that a secret, because they didn't want it made public that they were going to remove a native grass species from the critically endangered list. Why? Because there was something to hide—that is, because a landowner who is also a minister of the Crown in this government and a colleague of Mr Frydenberg's, who was then the minister for the environment, was actually personally affected. That is an utter disgrace. You had a minister for the environment who was actually seeking to weaken environmental protection measures. One might say that that went against the office that he held at that time. We haven't really had much of a statement from Mr Frydenberg. He has been asked many questions on this by journalists, and here today, but he hasn't really answered any of those questions.

Let's go to the ministerial standards. Section 2.1 states:

… it is critical that Ministers do not use public office for private purposes.

Section 2.11 states:

… these Standards require that Ministers make arrangements to avoid conflicts of interests arising from their investments.

That is very plain language. That is very plain language for ministers of the Crown and the Prime Minister to follow and for the Prime Minister to enforce. Neither has happened in this instance—neither. It is a disgrace.

What this makes people think is that the wheels in wheels that operate in this government and have operated for some time—we're seeing a total disregard for and a total thumbing of the nose at acting with integrity, which is another word that is sprinkled throughout the Prime Minister's Statement of Ministerial Standards that no-one seems to follow. People want accountability and transparency from a government. Instead they've got a government whose senior ministers—some of the most senior ministers in this government—abide by their own sets of rules.

Yesterday we heard of two former ministers who left this place and went straight into the arms of corporate Australia, ready to swap ministerial knowledge for pay. What we haven't really focused on is former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who's also done that; he's gone to KKR. At some point we might ask some questions about that. But today we see another cabinet minister intervene to ensure the value of his own financial interest. It's imperative that Australians can trust their representatives not to interfere in matters that may relate to their personal financial interests, and to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

This is not the first time questions have been asked in relation to Minister Taylor's potential conflicts of interest. He's actually got quite a history. We are seeing an extensive investigation into record-breaking amounts being paid in water buybacks from the Commonwealth involving a company Mr Taylor helped to establish, where the water was of questionable value. One has to ask: does the minister represent the constituents of Hume or does he represent his own family's interests—their property, their share portfolio? Again, what we see is a clear example of how Prime Minister Morrison cannot enforce his own ministerial standards. They are simply not worth the paper they're written on.