Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Senate—this chamber that we're all privileged to participate in—is the country's house of review. It is the premier house of review in this nation. To put it in pub vernacular terms, it's our job to poke our nose into this government's business, it's our job to scrutinise and it's our job to compel transparency on decisions, legislation and regulations that come before this place. I'm just going to name it up. To people outside this place—and to me and many inside this place—what we've seen with the sports rorts scandal looks like straight-up corruption. It looks like straight-up criminal behaviour. When someone is misappropriating public funds for their own personal or political benefit, that is corruption. That is the way this is perceived by Australians when they see politicians spending their money—public money—for their own benefit or for the benefit of politicians, their political parties, their careers and their bank accounts. That's the way Australians see this, and we shouldn't see it any other way. This has got to stop.

This institution is so important to the running of this country, yet politics, not just in this country but all around the world, is on the nose with the public. They see us as being self-serving agents in here for our own benefit or the benefit of our parties. Forcing transparency with this motion that is before us today in relation to an order for production of documents is absolutely crucial. How ironic is it that the Prime Minister was happy to commission this Gaetjens report and happy to tell the Australian public the outcome of the report, which was that everything's fine—'There's nothing to see here'—but he won't release the details? Why is that? Once again, let's ask whether this passes the pub test in Australia. Any Australian thinking about this would be saying, 'Well, clearly the reason the Prime Minister doesn't want to disclose this report is that he has something to hide.' That's just not good enough. Given what's at stake here—given what we need to change and amend to make sure this kind of pork-barrelling, this kind of criminal behaviour, doesn't occur in the future—we need to fix this.

Can I say, in relation to the order for production of documents, that I remember that, when I started as a senator and the Senate passed an order for production of documents motion to compel the government to release the transcripts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, and the government refused to do so, I sought advice from the then Clark, Rosemary Laing. She showed me where Odgersdeals with this, and she said, 'Senator, if the government doesn't listen to an order of this chamber, the Senate, then it's actually your duty and the Senate's duty to disrupt their legislative framework until you get what you need.' It's actually the Senate's duty to disrupt this government's legislative framework until it provides the information that's been demanded by the Senate. That's what I remember being told, and that's what I remember going into in that debate.

The Senate needs to consider this. The government, at the last election, got elected, yes. It didn't get a majority in this house of review, the Senate. We get to choose, on behalf of the people who elected us and put us in here, what passes in this place. We get to decide what documents we want the government to show us. That is the power of the Senate, and it's already been covered in other speeches. We can't let this precedent continue where the government is refusing to provide the documents that have been demanded by the Senate. There is no reason, except for self-preservation and self-interest, why the government wouldn't release the Gaetjens report, particularly in the light of the fact that they were happy to say, 'Everything's fine,' yet they won't provide the detail of that. That is contradictory to what we have seen from the Auditor-General's report and other information that has come before us.

The most important thing here is that we make sure this never happens again and that, in any future election, any government can't use public funds to make sure they stay in power and are re-elected. That has to change, and it won't change without simple transparency, without all the detail we need to make sure we put up amendments or whatever is necessary to protect the Australian people, because it's their money the government's been spending for their own self-interest. It's not Mr Scott Morrison's money. It's not the Liberal Party's money or Senator McKenzie's money. This is the Australian people's money, and it is criminal and straight-up corruption that it's been allowed to proceed this way, where this kind of money is spent for personal and political self-interest.

Question agreed to.