Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

Only one document was tabled, which was a letter from the minister. The minister was ordered by this chamber—I hope Centre Alliance are listening, because they say they care about transparency—to table transcripts of the phone call; any notes taken by the Prime Minister, his office or officials; any briefings by the department or office for the purpose of the phone call; and any advice to the Prime Minister about the appropriateness of the call. Instead I get a brief letter, now handed to me across the table by Senator Mathias Cormann. He refers to the answers the Prime Minister has made in the House. He refers to an answer of the New South Wales police commissioner. He refuses to deny the existence of documents. He says documents of the kinds requested, if they existed, would not be able to be produced because they'd be the subject of a PII claim, because this matter concerns police inquiries.

This is transparency from this government, from the Morrison government. This is the transparency and integrity, or lack thereof, of the Morrison government. The reality is this: this is a scandal that is engulfing the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, but it goes right to the heart of the Morrison government. It is a scandal which demonstrates, yet again, that this government, under Mr Morrison, doesn't like scrutiny. They don't like scrutiny, they don't like transparency and they certainly don't like accountability. As the Leader of the Opposition said: when the Prime Minister talks about the quiet Australians, he really wants everyone to shut up and listen to him. That's actually what he means.

The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction was caught out using doctored documents to attack the mayor of Sydney. While energy prices keep going up and while emissions keep going up, he reckons it's smart to spend his time attacking the mayor of Sydney. I wonder whether his colleagues are sitting there, as they have to keep defending yet another Angus stuff-up, yet another 'Taylorgate' issue, and asking: what did he think he was doing? What does he reckon his job is? Why is a federal cabinet minister picking a fight with the mayor of Sydney?

Not only did the attack fail, it blew up in his face because it was based on a lie. It was based on a false document; it was based on a doctored document. The document spectacularly overstated travel expenditure by the City of Sydney reported in the 2017-18 annual report by an absurd amount. But the fake document was disseminated, by his own admission, by this minister, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. He has repeatedly told the Parliament of Australia that it was downloaded from the City of Sydney website. But you know what? He has produced no evidence to support his claim. None!

On the other hand, the City of Sydney says it never published the fake document. And, unlike the minister, who has not provided one shred of evidence to support his assertion to the parliament, the City of Sydney has produced credible evidence in the form of metadata and is further supported by evidence from public internet archives.

The minister tries to dodge scrutiny by describing this fiasco as a 'conspiracy theory' and a 'grubby smear'. It's a bit like the way in which the questions about Brian Houston's invitation to the White House were simply gossip because Mr Morrison doesn't want to answer them. But we've had a New South Wales police strike force, Strike Force Garrad, established to investigate the matter and determine if offences under the New South Wales Crimes Act have been committed, and we know from reports that they are coming to Canberra to interview this embattled minister.

Faced with the scrutiny of his minister and of his government, the Prime Minister didn't do the right thing—but he did panic. He telephoned the New South Wales police commissioner and meddled and interfered in the investigation into Mr Taylor. What other Australian gets to pick up the phone and telephone the police commissioner when their mate is under investigation? Police should be able to conduct investigations independently and without interference—this really shows something about this Prime Minister's ethics.

The government continues to hide the truth about what really went on here. That is why, within this motion, we were seeking the documents that I described at the outset. Australians have a right to know what occurred on 26 November. We should not have a situation where a prime minister repeatedly phones a police commissioner to interfere in an investigation, because it appears from the police commissioner's answer that he only answered on the fourth call. So we've got a PM of the country ringing up—ring, ring, missed call; ring, ring, missed call; ring, ring, missed call—because he really wants to have a chat to the police commissioner about his mate.

When the Prime Minister calls a head of an agency or a department, regardless of jurisdiction, there should also be a process that's followed. This week we found out that the Attorney-General was also in on the call. Imagine that: the police commissioner having the Prime Minister and the first law officer of the land on the phone to probe him about an ongoing investigation into a senior member of the Prime Minister's team. Justice must not only be done; it must also be seen to be done. People in this country need to have confidence in our criminal justice system, and that confidence can only be undermined when the most powerful person in the country and the Attorney-General involve themselves in a criminal investigation because it smacks of and looks like interference. And the fact that the Attorney-General can't come clean on this scandal really tells us everything we need to know about this dodgy government. It is a government that doesn't like scrutiny, a government that doesn't like transparency, a government that doesn't like accountability and a government whose integrity is in tatters.

Mr Taylor doesn't appear to think that the normal rules apply to him. He doesn't appear to be able to open his mouth without saying something misleading. He misled the readers of The Daily Telegraph;he's misled the parliament. Apparently he's been misleading the parliament since his very first speech, claiming to have gone to Oxford with Naomi Wolf, who was living in New York at some time. That's a pretty good move, isn't it? How many people have actually misled the parliament in their very first speech? That is a real—