Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The empirical evidence suggests that increasing numbers of Australians lack trust in the political institutions that we look to to govern this country. The empirical evidence suggests that increasing numbers of Australians feel that the political system—and the economic system—does not serve the interests of ordinary Australians. The empirical evidence suggests that increasing numbers of Australians are deeply anxious that people in authority are not doing their job properly and are not able to reflect the public will and undertake work for the public benefit. It is examples such as this that I think raise serious questions as to why people might legitimately have concerns about the future of democracy in this country.

The questions of ethics and politics, and the questions of corruption and maladministration are really important matters that can't be dismissed in the manner in which the Leader of the Government in the Senate did when making this explanation today. To simply come in and say, 'The minister has never sought to abuse his office,' and then sit down is not an adequate response to what have been a series of public disclosures concerning the operations of the now Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, but assistant minister for cities at the time; and the now Treasurer, but minister for the environment at the time in terms of their execution of their duties. That's not to assume that everything that has been reported is correct in every respect, but there are serious allegations that need to be dealt with, and there is clearly a case for those allegations to be responded to. If the minister given the opportunity today has failed to do so, it may well be necessary for the Senate to take further action to try to get to the bottom of these allegations.

The assertion is that minister Angus Taylor, when minister for another portfolio, sought to have talks with federal Environment officials over an issue at the centre of an illegal land-clearing action brought by that department against a company which he partly owned, along with his brother that Minister Taylor, who was, as I said, assistant minister for cities at the time, sought to engage, through the minister for the environment, through a number of meetings, in direct discussions with public officials responsible for the administration of a program outside of his direct ministerial responsibilities, and those discussions involved matters where his company was the subject of allegations of illegal land-clearing. As a prima facie case, that's a pretty serious matter.

I looked back at the standards, and when a minister myself I always regarded the standards as an important document. I always understood that this was potentially a career-ending document if you did not take it seriously. These questions of ethical standards reflect proper public expectations that members of the House of Representatives and members of the Senate, when sworn in as ministers, should uphold.

The statements in various forms since the code has been established have insisted on the simple point that ministers are entrusted with considerable privilege and wide discretionary powers and that the very basic principles of integrity, fairness, accountability and responsibility, and the requirement to act in the public interest are the essence of your undertaking as a minister. The standards have always asserted—yes, it's true—that the privilege of serving as a minister involves considerable personal sacrifices in terms of both your personal time and your requirements to undertake your official duties and some considerable loss of your personal privacy. There is no doubt you are subject to a higher level of public scrutiny while you're in executive office—so you should be!

But there was also a written assumption that you should not allow your private life to encroach upon your exercise of public duty and that you don't use your public office for private purposes. That's what the public interest provisions of the job require. There are some provisions of these standards that you take on that are actually lifelong. Some I hear speak of requirements that last only a few months after you've got out of the job. Some of your obligations are actually lifelong. But what certainly is beyond dispute is that while you're in the job you don't engage with public servants about private commercial interests, which essentially is the allegation.

It's been proposed that the minister's company was the subject of this inquiry. He said he was not there to discuss his company; he was there to discuss this as a member of parliament, as electoral matters, despite the fact that the grasslands concerned were actually in another electorate. If you believed his explanation, I would suggest that you are probably so gullible as to believe the Prime Minister's explanation that he had nothing to do with the removal of Malcolm Turnbull—that he didn't manage to find the five votes necessary to get rid of the former Prime Minister. Surely you're not that gullible!

He's entitled to the presumption of innocence, I suppose, but it does lead me to the view that the department's Assistant Secretary for the Protected Species and Communities Branch, Mr Geoff Richardson, and a member of his staff, who were engaged in these matters and had clear responsibilities in terms of compliance matters, shouldn't have been put in a position where they were, even in the minister's words, 'Just seeking technical information'—technical information as a minister? I can assure you that you don't just seek technical information from public servants, particularly about your own private interests. Attempts were made to seek advice on how to change the regulations in this matter and to do so secretly. You have to ask yourself: why is it necessary to conduct these types of inquiries secretly? It's not a matter of national security.

It does suggest to me that two federal ministers were flouting the rules and setting the standards of behaviour for ministers in this way. You know the old story about the standard you walk past being the standard you accept. It strikes me that the two ministers are now behaving in a manner which suggests that they acted a bit like thieves in the night. This is not appropriate on a prima facie basis for Mr Taylor, who is now the energy minister, or Mr Frydenberg, who is now the Treasurer, because, if they're accepting that sort of behaviour in those, relatively speaking, more junior positions, what behaviour do they accept now in these more senior positions? As I indicated last night, does it mean you stand over the governor of the Reserve Bank and try to humiliate him and undermine the integrity of the Reserve Bank and think that that's okay? What else does that mean for water rights, electricity or any of the other matters that come under the great responsibilities as a minister of the Commonwealth of Australia? These are profound questions. (Time expired)