Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few comments, along with my colleagues, on the response from the government to the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate's order—rather than a request—for the production of documents. The response from the government is galling. Here we have a homegrown scandal of their own, created by Minister Taylor himself, implicating others as he goes along through the cover-up of his behaviour and his refusal to provide information. We had the Prime Minister calling the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, while the first law officer of the land, the Attorney-General, was sitting in the room. Somehow those two gentlemen thought it appropriate to make that call and not take any notes or have any other observers. And we're meant to believe—in accordance with the scarcity of information provided by Senator Cormann today—that there are no documents of any kind related to this phone call. How convenient is that? In terms of public administration, it shows a complete lack of judgement and how sloppy the processes must be in the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister of this country called the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, who had announced that day that he had created a strike force to investigate allegations around one of the Prime Minister's own cabinet ministers. And the judgement of the Prime Minister and the first law officer of the land, the Attorney-General, was that it was not only fine to make that call but fine also to have no independent party present and no notes taken. It shows a complete lack of appropriate process and how arrogant this government is, with a 'born to rule' mentality, that proper process in relation to public administration, transparency, accountability and trust in the political process don't warrant those steps to be taken.

And not only are there no documents created for this OPD, but the final paragraph of Senator Cormann's letter goes on to say, 'And, Senate, even if there were documents created that you want to see, we wouldn't show you anyway.' It's completely unnecessary in terms of responding to this OPD, but it shows you the true colours of this government. They feel the need to go one step further, after accepting there has been no proper process and no transparency and there will be no accountability about the actions of the Prime Minister and the first law officer that day. Further to that, they're saying: 'Even if there were and we had been running some sort of proper process, we wouldn't be giving them to you anyway. In fact, if these documents did exist, which they don't'—so they're giving us the finger, really—'they would be subject to public interest immunity.'

If you have a look at what that means under the brief on the order for the production of documents, it's a concept that recognises it would be against the public interest for certain documents or information to be made public. How ridiculous is that? You've got the Prime Minister calling his friend—and that's the term he used—who's just announced that they're investigating one of this government's ministers, and it's not in the public interest for any documents or information around that to be made public. What are they hiding? Through this whole scandal with Minister Taylor, the question that I keep coming back to is: why aren't they just informing the public how the document was doctored and how it got to Minister Taylor, if it wasn't him that doctored it? Who is Minister Taylor protecting? If it wasn't him, why isn't he saying so? This building chatters from time to time, and I know there's speculation around who doctored the document, but, if it wasn't him that did it, why is Minister Taylor protecting someone? Why then is the Prime Minister protecting Minister Taylor? Why then is the first law officer of the land trying to protect everyone? Why is Senator Birmingham implicating himself in some sort of defence of Minister Taylor and his actions? Why would Senator Cormann—a man we all have dealings with in this chamber; many of us have a good working relationship with him and see him as a man of integrity—be launching such a staunch defence of Minister Taylor's actions?

There's no doubt the document was doctored; Minister Taylor has said that himself. So why can't there be some truth around what went on? Somebody knows who did it, and I can't see why the government is involving so many of its senior ministers in the cover-up. The minister has accepted the document was falsified, but, instead of dealing with that issue and instead of dealing with the misleading of the parliament and correcting the record, we've now got a prime minister who's misled the parliament and who's refusing to correct the record as well. It's often the things that happen after a scandal—or as a scandal rolls out—that actually show you the true colours of the organisation you're dealing with, and I think that's what we've seen in the last month or so as this has been rolling out.

Minister Taylor has been a drag on the government since they were re-elected. You've got the grasslands fiasco—a complete fiasco!—and improper dealings by Minister Taylor in relation to, again, an investigation into what was going on in a company that was linked to him through his family. That was back in June. We then have this own goal kicked in September. It goes into October, when Councillor Moore responds to the claim from Minister Taylor in his letter. So it's gone from late October. It's hamstrung this government, so they haven't been able to talk about anything, and nobody will clear it up. Then we make a simple request with an order for production of documents to provide some accountability and some transparency into what went on in the Prime Minister's phone call to the police commissioner, and this is the response the Senate gets. The Senate is being treated with contempt by this government, and we've seen it with other orders for production of documents, when the response is one letter or a technical compliance with the order to produce but not actually producing anything.

The Senate is a chamber that has powers, unlike the House, where debate can be shut down—as it has been shut down on the topic of Minister Taylor at every opportunity. Again, this shows the colours of this government: if they don't like what you say, you don't have a right to say it. I think the Prime Minister would like a quiet parliament. Well, you can't make the Senate quiet. You might be able to gag debates over in the House, but, over here, in a minority chamber, we have powers and processes available to us that require the government to be accountable. What we've seen today from Minister Cormann is the arrogance and the lack of integrity that we are becoming, unfortunately, very accustomed to in our dealings with this government. Not only do they have no documents; they say, 'Even if we did, Senate, we wouldn't provide them to you anyway.' This Senate needs to stand up for itself and we on this side will continue to do that. We will continue to ask the government to provide information and to be accountable and transparent to the Australian community through this. I think and I hope that the crossbench will also play an important role in that, because we cannot allow the government to treat important processes like orders to produce documents in the way that they have treated them in the Senate today. Not only are they saying, 'We don't have any documents'; they're telling the Senate to be quiet too, because, 'Even if we did have those documents, Senate, you're not getting them, because we would claim public interest immunity'. What a joke. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.