James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I made the point that I was not alluding to that. What is interesting is that we have a Labor Party who, before the election, did this great 'conga line dance', to quote one of their former leaders, around Australia, talking about the importance of transparency and accountability. But since the election—similar to their promise about reducing power bills by $275, by the way—they have not mentioned transparency or accountability. Indeed, it's like this negative black hole, where certain words go into the Labor Party lexicon and then disappear. It's like a negative dictionary—the words aren't in the dictionary; there's just a white space there.

We have a Labor Party in power who, before the election, said, 'Yes, we want increased transparency and accountability.' When they get into power, they sniff those leather chairs of power and they allude to the pheromones that are floating around the place and they decide, 'This is brilliant. We can avoid any scrutiny. We've got billions of dollars of taxpayers' money—not tens of thousands or tens of millions or hundreds of millions; we've got billions and billions of dollars. We're going to use it as our slush fund and we're going to go around Australia and—guess what?—we're not going to be accountable for it.'

When this chamber, this house of review, tries to—not tries to but does—pass resolutions and says to the executive of this country, 'We want some accountability, we want to know how and where and why this money's being spent, and we want these documents,' what does the Labor Party—the giant 'light on the hill' that talks about accountability—do? It's not a light on a hill. It's a bonfire of accountability. It's a bonfire of transparency. This so-called accountable government is anything but.

What we've seen this week is the Senate at its best. We've had everybody from the Greens to the coalition to other crossbench members come together to say to the executive: 'We want to know something that's going on here. We're elected. We're elected by the people of Australia. So, you people, you ministers, deliver on your promises. Show some accountability.' This is what this chamber has done not just this week but in previous weeks.

What we've seen since the election is the Labor Party government become a closed shop on accountability and transparency. That is shameful, it is hypocritical and it is disappointing. It is so disappointing that the Labor Party would not only treat this chamber with such disrespect but also treat the taxpayers of Australia with such disrespect. What we are talking about here is the expenditure of public funds, and when we talk about public funds, we're talking about money that comes from taxpayers. I know there are some in this chamber, particularly those on the left side of the economic pendulum, who believe there are things called magic money trees, that money comes out of a cash machine which little pixies fill up each day, but it comes from taxpayers. It comes from people who work, who start and run businesses, who employ people. It comes from people who want to go and work for people who run businesses. It comes from the workers of Australia. But, no, we don't want any accountability there! Nah. Because this is now one giant slush being run by the Labor Party.

It is so embarrassing when the ministers come in here—poor Minister Watt who spent so much time before the election attacking the previous government—and spend less than a minute, such is the disrespect that the Labor Party holds for this chamber and for the resolutions passed by this chamber. We've got 'minute man minister': 55 seconds. How shameful is that? It's so shameful, disrespecting the taxpayers of Australia, disrespecting the resolutions of this chamber, disrespecting the role of this chamber, disrespecting what we're here for. We're all here for what is good for Australia, what is good to make Australia a better place, and part of making Australia a better place is to ensure that public funds are appropriately spent and to ensure that the executive is held to account.

What we've seen since the election is this chamber pass what are called, for those who might be listening at home, orders for the production of documents, OPDs. And what we've seen is order after order get passed by this chamber, but, sadly, day after day, hour after hour, the Labor government fails to comply with those orders, fails to supply those documents, fails to uphold standards of accountability and transparency. That is tragic.

The arrogance of this government, who comes into this chamber and treats it with such disrespect, is a damning indictment of a government that, at its first-year mark, at the 365-day mark, will spend 55 seconds saying to this chamber: 'You are not important to us. The resolutions of this chamber are not important to us.' That is wrong. That is wrong because it sets the standards for what this government will fail to achieve over the coming years.

We'll see what happens in estimates next week. We're sure that in estimates next week we'll have the great and the good representing the Labor Party, sitting at the ministerial table—great ministers like Assistant Minister Brown over there, who I hope will go beyond the very low standards set by some of her colleagues and answer questions and provide documents. This is above party politics. This is above the yah-boo politics that you do sometimes see in this chamber, which is part of a vibrant democracy. This, at it's very, very core, is about this chamber living up to its promise as a chamber of review—a chamber that can hold the executive to account—because that is what this chamber does, and, when it does it, that is when this chamber is at its best.

Sadly, the other side of that coin is that we've got a government at its worst, a government that will not provide the documents that this chamber has ordered. It's not just a polite request; it actually is an order of the chamber, by the way. The Prime Minister talks about good manners. Well, Prime Minister, good manners would start with you instructing your ministers to comply with orders of this chamber. The Prime Minister says, 'We want a nicer, kinder type of politics.' Well, comply with the orders of this chamber.

Instead, the Labor Party ministers snub their noses at this chamber. They snub their noses at the people of Australia; they snub their noses at the taxpayers of Australia. They snub their noses at what this chamber does. It is a shameful indictment of the modern Labor Party and of how they treat the government of Australia as nothing but a plaything for them and their union mates and they ensure that what they get up to is done in the deep, dark, secret corners. No! Be accountable, be transparent and be the promise that you said you would be. Do what you said you would do. But, no, you're not. You're just not very good. Actually, you're beyond 'not very good'; you're rubbish! Be better! (Time expired)