Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Well, you can set your watch to it: the Senate orders the Morrison-Joyce government to produce documents relating to a dodgy grant, and the Morrison-Joyce government just flat-out refuses to deliver. They are shameless, are they not? They're addicted to secrecy and allergic to accountability. There is no standard so low that they can't limbo underneath it. They think they are above the law.

Senator Patrick points out there are blind trusts. Perhaps, as we saw in the House yesterday, there is a new low standard. Well, here we go. We know that the Morrison-Joyce government members break the rules that they don't care about and they change the rules that they can change.

The Senate ordered that the minister lay on the table emails, spreadsheets and maps related to the car park rorts scandal. We know from the ANAO that the projects under the car park rorts program were picked from a list titled 'The top 20 marginal electorates'. You can't get more blatant than that. We know that hundreds of millions of dollars was shovelled out the door on projects announced during the 2019 federal election campaign, and we know that 77 per cent of the car park sites ended up in coalition electorates and not in areas where they were most needed. The ANAO found out—surprise, surprise!—that none of the 47 project sites selected for funding commitments were proposed by the department of infrastructure—none of them. This is egregious. This is wholesale rorting.

The government that Mr Morrison leads is littered with examples of scandal, rorting and waste. I have lost track of the number of ministers who've been exposed for their misconduct and their dodgy dealings: Taylor, McKenzie, Colbeck, Cash, Ley, Dutton, Fletcher, Robert, Tudge, Hunt, Ruston, Reynolds and Porter. All of these ministers have been linked to one scandal or another. I wish car park rorts were an anomaly, but this is the new normal for the Morrison-Joyce government. They spend taxpayer money as if it is Liberal-National Party money. The sheer quantum of misconduct by those opposite is simply staggering. I don't think it's about to get any better, by the way. There's a federal election right around the corner, and this tired eight-year-old Liberal-National government doesn't have any other tricks up its sleeve. There's never been a better time, in fact, to be a colour coded spreadsheet than under Mr Morrison and his mates.

Anne Webster, the member for Mallee, had an uncharacteristic moment of honesty from the Morrison-Joyce government, but she's new; she might grow out of that. Anyway, she had an uncharacteristic moment of honesty when she belled the cat on the Building Better Regions rorts. She revealed that coalition MPs can basically just ask for any money they want, regardless of the rules of the grant. Depending on the whims of the minister on any given day, they might just get that money.

I've been in politics long enough to know that there is a view out there in the community that grifting, graft and dodgy deals are just par for the course, the nature of the beast and the cost of doing business. I think the former Premier of New South Wales Gladys Berejiklian said: 'What's wrong with pork-barrelling? Everybody does it.' She might have a different view about that these days, by the way. This view is supposedly factored in by voters, because 'all political parties do it and all politicians are in it for themselves'. But what is clear from car park rorts, sports rorts, Building Better Regions rorts and all 22 of the slush funds in Mr Morrison's recent budget is that we are experiencing an all-time low for government accountability in this country. This is uniquely bad. We've had grants for rural and regional communities handed to projects that are literally next door to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We've had sports clubs in marginal seats given money for female change room facilities when they have no women's teams. We've had funding for community safety grants cut so the minister could spend cash in an election announcement.

The behaviour of the Morrison-Joyce government is brazen. Mr Morrison appears to have a blatant disregard for the rules and institutions of our democracy. The Australian people have a right to know what their government gets up to. They have a right to know how their money is being spent. They have a right to expect a higher standard from their elected officials.

But Mr Morrison and his mates don't even try to hide it anymore. Asked about the car park rorts earlier this year, the Minister representing the Prime Minister in this place, Senator Birmingham, simply shrugged and said: 'The Australian people had their chance and they voted the government back in at the last election.' They're not even trying to hide this anymore. Why attempt, by the way, to defend the indefensible? You have to admire the hide of the whole thing. They're just hoping that no-one pays close enough attention to their bad behaviour. As long as they get re-elected, what do they care? It's a disgraceful attitude. It is beyond contempt, particularly when we see communities that need community safety funding not getting it, particularly when we see areas that are affected by congestion neglected for a car park because they just happen to be in a Labor-held seat.

Frankly, though, people are catching on. Look at what we saw yesterday in the House of Representatives. For the first time since Federation, a government has voted against the Speaker. It voted against a motion that the Speaker had given precedence to—namely, that former minister Christian Porter should be investigated for his failure to declare a million-dollar blind trust. We're all public servants in this place. We all have to follow the rules. We all have to be accountable to our constituents and the broader public. Christian Porter's decision to accept this money without declaring it constitutes at least an investigation. It looks like an outrageous breach of office, and he should be investigated. That was the view of the Speaker, a Liberal Party colleague of Mr Porter, who ruled there was a prima facie case for referral, and Labor supported the referral. It was Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, and Mr Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, and all of their mates in the government who didn't. They held their noses and they voted against the Speaker for the first time in nearly 120 years, in a blatant display of disregard for transparency and accountability. It's extraordinary. It is quite literally without precedent in this country.

The member for Pearce is being protected by the Prime Minister. That's the only explanation here. He's the only Western Australian this Prime Minister has ever stood up for, and that speaks volumes of this Prime Minister. The Morrison government will hound people to their death with robodebt, but they'll help a disgraced former minister cover up his million-dollar blind trust. No wonder they don't want to fund a federal ICAC! No wonder they don't even want to present the legislation for a national anticorruption commission! No wonder they don't want to answer questions on notice! No wonder they don't want to abide by orders of the Senate to produce documents! This Prime Minister doesn't like answering question, because he knows the Australian people won't like the answers. If the documents requested by the Senate today could make the government look good, then we'd have seen them by now. So what are they hiding?

When voter cynicism in government grows, politicians like Mr Morrison flourish. Blokes like Mr Morrison have made a career out of exceeding ever-shrinking expectations. The only way we can restore the Australian people's faith in our democracy is by showing this lot the door, because, unless we get a government that is serious about a national anticorruption commission, these types of rorting, scandals, blind trusts, disregard of the Speaker, not answering questions on notice and not producing documents are simply going to continue. After eight long years of this tired Liberal-National government, the Australian people deserve a government that is on their side. Let me be clear in this chamber and with the Australian people: an Albanese Labor government will deliver a national anticorruption commission—one with teeth, one that will bring the transparency and accountability so long lacking in this tired eight-year-old national Liberal government. We will bring that to the national level, because the Australian people deserve to know what's being done with their money. They deserve to have accountability and transparency in their government, and they deserve a government that is on their side.