James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my capacity as the Deputy Chair the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19, I rise to make a brief contribution in response to that of the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19. I have very much enjoyed working with the chair and all members of the committee. It is not uncommon for, and I certainly don't object to, a Senate committee taking issue with the use of public interest immunity claims by governments, but I think it's important to place these particular disputes between the committee and the government over a handful of public interest immunity claims in the wider context of the work of the committee. I think it's important for the record, and government senators have made additional comments in this report, to note that, since the committee was established on, I agree, a bipartisan basis, as Senator Gallagher noted, 39 public hearings have been held; the health department has appeared 10 times before the committee; the Treasury has appeared eight times before the committee; the committee has, as of a few days ago, sent out 2,273 questions on notice both to the government and to other witnesses before the inquiry; government agencies and departments have answered almost 2,000 questions on notice to the committee; and all of this was done in the midst of the most unprecedented global pandemic in our lifetimes and the associated economic crisis. So I think it's a bit unreasonable for the chair to characterise the government as being uncooperative or secretive. It actually shows a high degree of cooperation and a high degree of respect for the Senate. It's not unusual for there to have been a handful of issues of disagreement on PII claims, but let's put that handful—literally a handful—of disagreements between the committee and the government in the context of what is actually an amazing degree of cooperation and bipartisanship, which has been upheld throughout this process.