David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My apologies. I would just seek to make a brief contribution on the bill. I seek leave to do so.

Leave granted.

I rise to speak briefly to the Parliamentary Privileges Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Bill 2022 and I thank Senator Lambie for bringing this bill to the Senate in such a timely fashion. All of us in this chamber, in our work with constituents, particularly veterans, have seen the impact of veteran suicides not only on the Defence Force but on other veterans, on their families and on the broader defence community. It has been genuinely shocking for me to see the lack of care and the systemic failures in dealing with veterans in the short time that I have been the Greens spokesperson for veterans affairs.

I have said before and I will say again: I don't hold the current government responsible for the mess that the system is in but I do hold the government responsible for navigating the way through and fixing the system, and for doing it with the degree of urgency that the interim report has shown is needed. One of the key problems, though, that we saw from the interim report has been the way in which the royal commission under very effective leadership has not had the ability to look in detail and then draw inferences and conclusions from a series of parliamentary committee reports, Auditor-General reports, government reports and government responses. It is in response to those very real practical concerns that we saw recommendation 7 of the interim report released to the parliament. Recommendation 7 reads:

Provide exemption from parliamentary privilege Where their terms of reference require an examination of government, Royal Commissions should be made exempt from section 16(3)(c) of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 (Cth).

The royal commission made this recommendation because parliamentary privilege in the broader sense had been prohibiting the royal commission from drawing the conclusions or inferences from previous reports created by parliamentary committees tabled in parliament, or as part of the broader parliamentary business. The royal commission said:

A number of other reports prepared by the Auditor-General as well as the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade are directly relevant to our work. These reports are subject to privilege, meaning we cannot draw inferences or conclusions from them.

The royal commission went on to say how this directly impeded its work. saying:

This leaves us unable to inquire into the work and outcomes of prior critical reports—it hampers our ability to learn from that which came before. This risks an unnecessary duplication of effort. It impedes transparency surrounding government decisions and acts as a shield for the executive from accountability for their commitments and actions taken to implement matters subject to privilege.

I stop there to remind the Senate that the royal commission is inquiring into defence and veteran suicide. As has been commented on in this debate and outside, our defence forces have lost more personnel through suicide than in all of the armed conflicts they have been involved in, from Iraq to Afghanistan and onward. That is a chilling reminder of the importance of this work. And to see that the royal commission has been hampered in that work places an obligation on us to see what we can do to remedy that.

This bill seeks to amend the Parliamentary Privileges Act but in a very broad way, by adopting the wording of the recommendations, and I acknowledge Senator Lambie has done that. It does it by removing the limitation in 16(3)(c) of the act that prohibits the drawing inferences from 'anything forming proceedings in parliament'. That is potentially broader than is needed to deal with the concerns raised in the interim report, which are really limited to reports, to responses and those kinds of formal exchanges of documentation.

There is a series of reports, not least the DLA Piper report, as we were discussing earlier, Auditor-General reports, committee reports that should be in front of this royal commission, not just to note but to have a look at some of the structural failures—and not just structural failures in defence but structural failures in this place—that have seen these reports tabled but no action taken. That has been one of the core limitations, if you read in detail chapter 6 of the interim report. Addressing that is important to veterans, but doing it in a way that respects and promotes parliamentary privilege is the real challenge. There is area to explore in narrowing the scope of this bill, potentially a short, sharp inquiry to take relevant submissions to get the balance right. On balance, I will finish by reading the two sides of the argument. I read again from the interim report, paragraph 41 onwards:

We acknowledge the customary importance of parliamentary privilege to ensure that the parliament can debate and investigate matters of public importance effectively and without interference. But for a Royal Commission tasked with investigating systemic issues contributing to suicide—the origins of which may be the action or inaction of government and departments which have been subject to numerous prior reviews—privilege has hindered our work.Our terms of reference require us to consider 'the findings and recommendations of previous relevant reports and inquiries … including any assessment of the adequacy and extent of implementation of those recommendations'. In this Royal Commission, parliamentary privilege extends to a number of reports prepared for, or by, parliamentary committees which consider the same matters or matters directly relevant to our terms of reference.

We are concerned that parliamentary privilege is not limited to tendering documents or asking questions that might make or imply a conclusion about a decision of parliament. Privilege extends to inviting the drawing of any inferences or conclusions from part of a report or inquiry, even if that inference would not impinge on parliament or any of its members.

That is what is frustrating the royal commission, and you can understand why.

Again, we come back to this, the importance of parliamentary privilege, and I say this from the position of a party that does not have majority. I acknowledge, as well, independents. Parliamentary privilege is essential for whistleblowers to know they have protection when they come to us. It's important for us to be able to hold powerful corporations and interests to account. It's important and essential for us to do the work, and Odgers' indicates that. Odgers', in its Australian Senate Practice, says this in relation to privilege, and particularly focusing on the Senate:

The law of parliamentary privilege is particularly important so far as the Senate is concerned, because it is the foundation of the Senate's ability to perform its legislative functions with the appropriate degree of independence of the House of Representatives and of the executive government which usually controls that House.

Parliamentary privilege exists for the purpose of enabling the Senate effectively to carry out its functions. The primary functions of the Senate are to inquire, to debate and to legislate, and any analysis of parliamentary privilege must be related to the way in which it assists and protects those functions. Although the relevant law is the same for both Houses, and is analysed accordingly in this chapter, its particular significance for the Senate must constantly be borne in mind.

Our party is very aware of how essential parliamentary privilege is, and adopts in whole that observation in Odgers'. We do, however, commend Senator Lambie for bringing on this bill, and we do think that there is a powerful argument to explore it in detail, in a brief committee inquiry, in order to check if we can get that balance right. And we don't have forever to wait. This royal commission's time is running out. Veterans can't wait. If we are going to do this, we should act with some haste.