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 explanations, or lack thereof.

I'm unsurprised that they are leaving the chamber, just as they are trashing our democracy in the way they are dealing with this disgusting political cover-up. That they have refused to table the documents speaks to that cover-up and demonstrates yet again the disregard in which this government holds the Australian democracy. This is all about protection of the Prime Minister, who is up to his neck in the sports rorts scandal. Well, I've got some news for the government: it's too late. It's too late for a cover-up when you've already been caught. And, having been caught, Mr Morrison had only one chance to make good with the Australian people, and that was to fess up—just front up. But, as always with ScoMo, Mr Morrison is too clever by half, and, once again, he diminishes himself and his office by doubling down on the crime as he tries to cover it up.

He has been caught red-handed but is pretending there's nothing to see. But we can all see it, and the Australian people can all see it, because no-one believes this was a solo effort by Senator McKenzie. If this Prime Minister has demonstrated anything, it's that he calls the shots in this government. He drives the politics. He doesn't have a plan, but he drives the politics. Remember last year, when Ms Leigh Sales asked him who would be in charge of his government and who would be making decisions. He said, 'I will.' And that applies to the sports rorts just as it applies to every other aspect of the political strategy in which he has been engaged.

Senator Colbeck has not complied with the order to table the spreadsheet colour-coding over 2,000 grant applications under the CSIP by the party that held the electorate. But we know the spreadsheet already exists; it has existed for a very long time. Do you know how we know that? It has been reported on extensively and was referred to in the Auditor-General's report. There is this claim that he needs more time. Well, this government has had plenty of time. They have had weeks. All they had to do was to press 'send' on a document on the desktop. The reason they have not tabled the spreadsheet is not that they need more time. Does anybody believe that? It is that they want to hide it.

This spreadsheet is the means by which this government has misallocated millions of dollars of taxpayers' money against the recommendations of Sport Australia. The Auditor-General found that taxpayer funds were abused for party political purposes. It's that simple. No wonder the government wants to hide the evidence that demonstrates that. The Auditor-General's report states:

… the Minister's Office used the spreadsheets provided to it by Sport Australia to undertake a parallel assessment process as a basis for the Minister deciding which projects should be funded with additional analysis on 'marginal' electorates held by the Coalition as well as those electorates not held by the Coalition that were to be 'targeted' in the 2019 Election …

There was a 'parallel assessment process' to use taxpayer funds for political purposes to target coalition marginal seats and targeted seats.

Then we have the legal authority of the minister. I have to say that I sat here shaking my head as I listened to Senator Payne reading out the letter and going on about legal professional privilege. Let's remember what has occurred here: an independent statutory officer, the Auditor-General, has put into one of their reports that there is a question as to the legal authority of the minister to make decisions. That is the context of the demand for legal advice. It's not a request for legal advice about constitutional matters or a sensitive immigration matter or the powers of the Commonwealth to do certain things; it is a request for legal advice in circumstances where a statutory officer has said that there are serious doubts as to whether the minister even had authority to make these decisions. A government that actually cared about probity would ensure it at least provided sufficient advice to dispel that doubt.

What is happening is they are hiding legal advice in circumstances where an independent officer has said that there is a doubt as to whether or not the minister had any legal authority to approve funding decisions. I, for one, find it extraordinary—this is the government, the minister and the Attorney-General, who's supposed to be the first law officer of the Commonwealth. Mr Porter, shame on you that you can't even provide advice to the public to assure them that the doubts the Auditor-General raised can be dispelled. The best we got was the Prime Minister speed-reading bits of it in a press conference. 'Oh, yeah, he says she's fine.' That's essentially what the Australian people got: 'Trust us. Christian says it's fine, so it's fine.' Well I for one think the Australian people deserve a little bit more respect than that. Just another layer of cover up!

And then there's the communication between offices. Senator McKenzie resigned as minister for sport. It wasn't because she took the rap for the maladministration that occurred with this program; it was because of a breach of the Statement of Ministerial Standards. No-one in this government, no minister, has taken responsibility for what the Auditor-General found was a blatant use of taxpayers' money for rank political purposes against the guidelines of a program designed to help needy and deserving clubs.

Does anyone believe this was a solo effort by Bridget McKenzie? Does anyone believe that Mr Morrison was not in it up to his neck, that his staff weren't making sure that they milked every cent of taxpayers' money for political purposes? In fact, the Prime Minister's involvement is at the heart of Senator Colbeck's refusal to answer the second order of production made by the Senate.

Let's remember that Mr Morrison initially denied his office had any involvement. He's very good at denial, isn't he? I think over time the Australian people are coming to understand that you just can't trust his word. So he first denied it. He tried to palm it off to Senator McKenzie: 'Oh, the minister was the one making decisions. Nothing to do with me!' But he couldn't stick to his story, because at the Press Club he shifted and admitted, 'Oh, well, actually all we did was provide information based on the representation made to us.' It was the blanket, 'We had nothing to do with it; it had to be moved, because there was a bit too much evidence.' He's an ad man tangled up in his own spin.

And then it was reported that senior staff in his own office—in Mr Morrison's office, the Prime Minister's office—were involved in the allocation of grants under this program. It has also been reported that Senator McKenzie's office told Sport Australia that it had been asked by the Prime Minister's office 'to make a slight adjustment'. A slight adjustment! I wonder what that was? 'We need it in this seat, not that one. We need a bit more for this seat, not those. Take a bit more from this project to give it to this one, because that'd be really good for us.' It was all taxpayers' money. The Prime Minister and his office were in it up to their necks. There's no plausible way the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were not directly involved in what was a central part of their re-election strategy: misdirecting taxpayers' funds to serve the political interests of the Liberal and National parties.

Senator Colbeck said he will provide all communication between the current and former officers of the minister for sport and the office of the Prime Minister and office of the Deputy Prime Minister by midday tomorrow. Do we really think we can take him at his word, given their past performance? Of course the final document the government has refused to produce as part of this cover-up is the report provided by the Secretary of the Department of the PM&C, Mr Philip Gaetjens, the former chief of staff to Mr Morrison—to the Prime Minister.

Do you know what we're being asked to do—what the Senate, the media and the Australian public are being asked to do? We're being asked to accept that the findings of an independent statutory officer, the Auditor-General, should be overridden by a secret report authored by someone of dubious credibility, because Mr Gaetjens is Mr Morrison's mate, his former chief of staff, and that inquiry was commissioned by Mr Morrison to get exactly the advice he wanted so that he could do what he had already decided. The Gaetjens report is simply the way in which Mr Morrison gets sufficient paper to do what he'd already decided politically. It is not an exercise in accountability or transparency; it is an exercise in cover-up, a total sham.

I am unsurprised that Senator Cormann has refused to produce this report. He pretends somehow it would reveal cabinet deliberations. Well, I say this to Senator Cormann, and he is someone for whom I have some respect: you know this is an abysmal failure of accountability. You know this is a complete distortion of the principles of cabinet confidentiality. You know that Odgers says that you have to demonstrate that disclosure of the document would reveal cabinet deliberations; you can't simply make the claim because a document has the word 'cabinet' on it or because someone walked it through the cabinet room. The Gaetjens report is nothing more than a fig leaf to cover up where Mr Morrison is most vulnerable, and so, too, is the use of cabinet confidentiality. I say this to Senator Mathias Cormann: is this really the hill you want your credibility to die on? All your years in this place and all your efforts to bring integrity to this place are going up in smoke to protect a man who would never do the same.

As people in this place, we are privileged to be here. We are all members of parties, and we engage in political contests. I'm up for it! But we're also custodians of our democracy. And it was with regret rather than enthusiasm that non-government senators signed a motion that will be voted on later today that would prevent Senator Cormann from representing the Prime Minister until he produces the Gaetjens report. It is an extraordinary step. It's not a step I have ever taken. I've led the Labor Party in this place for many years and I have never engaged in sponsoring such a motion. But we have taken this extraordinary step, with an extraordinary alliance of non-government senators, because of our deep concern at the trashing of democratic conventions by this government. I really hope that Senator Cormann acts to protect his legacy and reputation, rather than loyally trying to salvage the reputation—that is unsalvageable—of the ad man that leads this government.

The government's actions in refusing these four separate orders, and in their other conduct, are a wilful disregard of the conventions of accountable government. They act like this is their joint—that it's theirs to play with. So I want to conclude on this point. We can have an argument about the government's conduct in their administration of the Community Sport Infrastructure program. We can have a debate about spreadsheets. We can have a debate about legal advice. We can have a debate about correspondence and reports. But what should not be up for debate is the responsibility of the executive government to the parliament and, through it, to the Australian people. It's actually the core of our democratic system. As the National Party minister Mr Chester noted recently, we live in a time when there is a serious deficit of trust between people and their institutions of government. Trashing the convention of executive responsibility to the parliament trashes both these branches of government. That is what is at stake.

We stand here in this Senate and we, rightly, regard it as one of the most significant legislative chambers in the world. But its importance only comes through the responsibility it has in our constitutional system of government: to work for the people who elected us to serve in it. Each time a minister comes in here and refuses to give an answer or refuses to table any information when documents were ordered to be produced, the Senate is diminished.

I say to those opposite: don't diminish this place. Serve here, and act with the responsibility which comes from guarding against the misuse of power; act instead in the interests of honesty, transparency and accountability and, above all, in the interests of the Australian people.