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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Rarely have I heard such tosh. The minister stands up here and has the gall to say that the order for the production of documents did not include the resignation letter of the commissioner, a commissioner who could barely spend 12 months in the job, with this government refusing to fund his office and refusing to fund freedom of information requests. Less than 12 months into the job he basically resigned in disgust. The order for the production of documents included:

… briefing notes and file notes held by either the Attorney-General and/or his office and/or the Attorney-General's Department, as well as any correspondence between the Attorney-General and/or his office and the Attorney-General's Department in relation to the resignation of Mr Leo Hardiman …

Did the commissioner not resign via correspondence? Was it a smoke signal that was sent from the commissioner? Did he do it by pigeon or some sort of weird hand signal from place to place?

Of course it covered the letter of resignation.

Of the specious nonsense we just heard from the government there, if that is really the quality of the legal advice coming out of the AG's office—saying that the letter wasn't covered by the order for papers—it's an embarrassment to the office. It's an embarrassment to the minister to come and repeat that rubbish in the Senate. Of course it was covered. If they have some ridiculously patently false legal argument for why it's not covered, give them credit for having tried to come up with some creative legal argument in the office about why it's not covered. Assume they did that—that they spent a week coming up with that rubbish. Assume they did that. If they did do that, then less credit to them too. If they did that, then less credit because obviously the resignation letter was being sought in this. If they have come up with some specious legal nonsense that satisfied them when they got around the water cooler and tried to come up with ways of defeating transparency, that's even less credit to the Attorney. I say again it won't end here. To the minister: produce the resignation letter. To the Attorney: live up to the rhetoric and you won't be embarrassed like this.

We've heard a lot of rhetoric about wanting to fix freedom of information. I want to be clear that it fell into deep disrepute under the previous government, with a gross lack of funding and contempt from ministers and departments about the system. But this government came in promising it would be different. We had all the rhetoric from the Attorney as a shadow. I've got to tell you, as soon as the shadow disappeared, there sure as hell wasn't any sunshine. We haven't come from a shadow A-G to one that wants to put sunshine on the workings of government. We've come from a shadow A-G to an even deeper shadow in government. This was a chance to try and do the right thing and to actually show us why the commissioner resigned. The public needs to know why the commissioner resigned less than 12 months into a five-year appointment. We're asking to shine some sunshine on the resignation of the FOI Commissioner. You couldn't have a greater example of political irony than the new Attorney-General responding to a call for papers about the resignation of the FOI Commissioner with a specious, rubbish legal argument about why it wasn't covered and then pages and pages and pages of blacked-out documents. This return was like high-level political irony.

But I have to say, if the Attorney-General and the minister think we'll be satisfied with a nonsense explanation and pages and pages of blacked-out documents on something as critical as why the Freedom of Information Commissioner resigned and why they won't show us the resignation papers, then I think there's going to be a surprise coming because it won't end here. It won't end with that ridiculous nonexplanation from the minister. The Senate deserves answers, the thousands and thousands of Australians who have been waiting years to get their FOI reviews resolved deserve answers, and the people of Australia deserve answers, not that tosh we just got served up.