Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment (Senator Birmingham), and the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Wong) and Senator O’Neill today relating to ministerial standards.

Over the last two days, Senators Birmingham and Cormann have been asked on multiple occasions to explain the circumstances surrounding Mr Taylor and Mr Frydenberg and the meetings that they secured with the department about grasslands in the Monaro area. It is striking how unwilling they have been to add even the tiniest amount of detail to this story, and it's a big tell. I haven't been in this parliament and this chamber for as long as some of these people, but I have been around long enough to know that when you get answers like the ones that are being provided here, there is a cover-up going on. People are scrambling. The senators who have been answering questions in this place have been desperate to keep their hands off this. Every answer they've provided has referred to statements made by Minister Taylor or referred to statements made by Minister Frydenberg. They've been completely unwilling to verify with any confidence the set of facts asserted around these circumstances. That is because they are impossible to reconcile based on the available evidence.

It's probably useful to set out some of the facts as they've been reported. It's reported that in October 2016 almost 30 hectares of critically endangered grasslands were cleared in the Monaro area after the land was bought by Jam Land Pty Ltd. In November, a complaint is made by neighbours to the New South Wales and federal environment authorities and, on 7 March 2017, the federal department of the environment meets with representatives of Jam Land to discuss potential contraventions of federal environment laws. That's what has been reported.

We now know from documents obtained under FOI that, on 9 March—just two days after that first meeting when the environment officers go and meet with Jam Land—a meeting is sought by staff in Minister Frydenberg's office with officers from the department to discuss land clearing. The coincidence is striking, isn't it? Within a day, within a day of that first contact between the department and Jam Land, the minister's office is on the case, seeking a meeting from the department. An assistant secretary the following day is emailing his colleagues, talking about this call and quite clearly flagging concerns and anxieties about the position that the department is being placed in by the minister's staff. On 20 March 2017, a meeting in Parliament House with Mr Taylor takes place in relation to this listing of critically endangered species. At the request of Minister Frydenberg, a compliance officer from the department is present at the meeting.

Why does it matter? It's complicated, isn't it? The whole affair stinks of the kind of insider dealings that drive people nuts. The facts as reported give rise to very serious questions in relation to the ministerial standards—the standards that require our ministerial representatives to be honest, that require them to separate the public interest from their private interests. There are serious questions about whether the ministers in question were acting in the public interest or, instead, were acting to protect the interests of one minister and his family and their interest in a particular company, Jam Land.

There has been a discussion today about disclosure, as though that's enough. The facts on the table about disclosure suggest that nowhere near enough has been done. Not all the obligations have in any way been met. Documents tabled today show that Gufee, the company in which Minister Taylor is listed as a shareholder and an officer, has a clear financial interest in Jam Land. That is something you think might have been made public, might have been made known to the departmental officers who were involved in the meeting between Minister Taylor and Minister Frydenberg. But, no, because, in April, during estimates, the secretary of the department couldn't have been clearer. He said, in answer to a question: 'Senator, I can be quite explicit about this. I am not aware that the minister is a shareholder. I do not know that information. Minister Taylor has never raised that issue with me.' Ought not the secretary of the department have been informed that the minister he was meeting with had a direct financial relationship with the company against whom an investigation was taking place? This is not good enough.