Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise this afternoon to take note of the answers provided by Minister Reynolds in response to Senator Wong's question on the government's failure to table a schedule of special purpose flights that's been ordered by the Senate. I think that's sort of the key point here—that it's been ordered by the Senate, a key institution of our democracy, one of the two chambers in our parliament. This place serves as the house of review but also provides that extra layer of scrutiny on the executive body. The comments earlier by those opposite indicate that they seem to just want to discount the fact that the Senate has a role. The fact is that the Senate has asked for these documents, yet the government continues to simply ignore the fact that the minister has an obligation to this place. They are treating this whole debate as 'Nothing to see here. It's only a document. We don't need to worry about its contents.' But it is under scrutiny today, with the executive being questioned by the Labor opposition. What we find is that the minister is like, 'Oh, we'll just be able to provide that tomorrow.' You have to ask why it has taken the minister and her department over eight months? In her department there are hundreds if not thousands of people who easily could have turned this document around very quickly.

There has been a little bit of scrutiny in this place, with some questioning from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Wong, with contributions from Senator Kitching, in her consistent pursuit of this government's failure to provide any form of transparency to the Australian people. I should note that Senator Kitching has been doing an outstanding job in her role, as shadow minister, to keep the government accountable in her portfolio areas. Yet what we have from government senators is that the minister's responsibilities to this place should just be ignored—that she has no obligation to provide, in a timely manner, documents that the Senate has requested. I think it really goes to the core of this government's attitude to how it perceives our democracy should work and how governments should operate in this place. Regarding the comments from Senator Abetz, as the second-longest serving senator in this place, and having been a former minister himself, he should know that these documents are important. They should be tabled in the Senate when there is a request to do so. It shouldn't take over eight months for such documents to be tabled. Sure, some of these may not be burning issues in your local supermarket but they certainly are important issues for the institutions that we are all elected to.

Our job here is to represent the people. Regardless of how small the issue may be, it is still an important issue and the fact that the government has taken over eight months to provide this document—and have now been prepared to make a commitment that they will table it tomorrow—feeds into the whole narrative that, since the election last year, this government's failure to be transparent with the Australian people has been exposed. Whether it is because of sports rorts, from the former Minister for Sport, Senator McKenzie, what we are seeing is a consistent pattern where this government chooses to turn its back on the processes that have been set up to make sure that the Senate can hold this government to account.

It is disappointing to see that the minister used the opportunity after question time, rather than during question time, to answer the questions that were put on notice. It is important to note that taking flights, travelling around this country, costs the taxpayer quite a bit of money. This is money that can be spent on other services that the government offers. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, where flights, rightly or wrongly, are flown around the country for a purpose. Why is it that the government chooses to withhold that information? And if it's not this document, what other documents can we expect this government to hide in the future? Why is it that Labor has to constantly apply pressure on this government and actually waste question time, when we could have asked questions on other matters. This government chooses to ignore the basic principles that this institution deserves to— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.