James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise also to speak on the Ministers of State (Checks for Security Purposes) Bill 2019. As the Chair of the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, I look forward to our forthcoming inquiries into this bill and no doubt considering the evidence and submissions we receive. Although Senator Patrick's well-known interest and concern for national security is laudable, the government does not support this bill. I will briefly outline why this morning.

The government already has extensive vetting processes in place for ministerial staff and public servants which Senator Patrick proposes be effectively extended to also include ministers. Senator Patrick's bill would require the Prime Minister, within 14 days of the appointment of a minister, to direct the Director-General of ASIO to investigate and provide a report on matters relating to security, including the personal background and circumstances of a minister. The director-general must then provide the report to the Prime Minister within 120 days, and it must be returned to ASIO upon the Prime Minister ceasing to hold that office.

The existing process for ministerial staff and public servants is comprehensive and appropriate. Depending on the level of clearance required, it can involve identity and citizenship verification, a police check, statutory declarations, referee checks, a digital footprint check, a financial history check, an ASIO assessment, a security interview and a psychological assessment. However, there are very good reasons why ministers and their staff and public servants should be treated differently when it comes to security vetting. In the Westminster system, the only qualifications for ministerial office are, first, election by the people as a member of parliament and, second, an invitation from the Prime Minister to join their ministry. Along with every other member of parliament, ministers are required to publicly declare any relevant interest that they may have which could influence them in the exercise of their duties. Ministers are also accountable to the parliament and have to front up on a regular basis to question time, estimates and other forums to be questioned on their conduct and performance in their role. Introducing a third qualification, whereby ministers would be required, in effect, to pass a bureaucratic process in order to hold office, undermines the Westminster system.

It is entirely appropriate for ministerial staff and public servants to undergo security vetting because they are entering into an employment relationship. But ministers are not employees; they are public officials. With that status comes the public scrutiny and accountability that cannot and should not be equally applied to staff or public servants. Public servants and ministerial staff do not stand for election and, therefore, do not expose themselves to the public and media scrutiny that comes with that. The burden for ensuring that ministers are qualified and appropriate for their role rightly falls squarely with the Prime Minister. Any Prime Minister knows that their appointments will be scrutinised through the democratic parliamentary and political processes that we have in place.

Of course, party leaders must exercise good judgement in choosing their frontbench teams, and I acknowledge, as Senator Patrick has pointed out, that has not always been the case. Senator Patrick raises the case of Senator Dastyari, and I was also planning to raise it in my remarks because I think it is a salutary lesson, although for different reasons than Senator Patrick does. I think it is, in the last parliament at least, the most infamous example of an inclusion of an inappropriate person in, in this case, an opposition shadow ministry. Yet, even in this instance, the best protection that our political system has against an unsuitable appointment remains public scrutiny. After adverse media coverage and parliamentary scrutiny, Senator Dastyari first stepped down from the Labor front bench in September 2016, then again stepped down from the Labor front bench in November 2017 following further revelations, and ultimately resigned from the Senate entirely in December 2017. This is a good example of how the public and parliamentary scrutiny processes that we already have in place are the best and most effective mechanism for ensuring that an unsuitable person is not appointed, in this instance, to a shadow ministry; it would equally apply had the Labor Party been successful at the last election and won government and had Senator Dastyari aspired to serve in the ministry in government.

A confidential security vetting process as proposed by Senator Patrick is no substitute for this robust process of public and parliamentary scrutiny and the Westminster principles of ministerial accountability. It is for these reasons that the government will not be supporting the bill.