Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

enator McKENZIE (—) (): I rise to support not only Senator Shoebridge in seeking documents from executive government, as is the right of all senators in this chamber, and has always been, but also the comments of Senator Cash and Senator Scarr.

Sadly, what we have seen from this government over 10 months is the decline in transparency, the decline in accountability, the decline in integrity and, indeed, the decline in respect for this chamber. We've seen it this week in guillotine motions over significant legislation. We've seen it with the way they treat senators not in the executive or not in government, they way they allocate speaking time and the lack of answers to significant questions.

I listened to Senator Watt's contribution where he freelanced from Minister Dreyfus' comments. He severely reflected on ministers in the former government, current senators and former prime ministers—as if that is the only reason they haven't complied with a very sensible order for the production of documents from Senator Shoebridge.

We shouldn't be surprised because, indeed, it was Senator Watt who, whilst in here earlier this week, realised he'd actually forgotten another essential document to him actually complying with an order of the production of documents around Australian Organic. It slipped his mind that the letter from Australian Organic to him as agriculture minister in December was part of the documents requested. Only once that organisation had themselves publicly released that private correspondence did he suddenly rush in here and table it—just incredible—along with another 13 documents he'd actually forgotten to lodge the first time. It is casual disregard.

These ministers, who are senators, should know better, and they should not be spending their time assisting ministers from the other place to take this chamber seriously. This is a powerful house of examination. This is the place where the diversity of Australia's voting public is expressed in a unique way. So there are requests from this chamber that will be made periodically that would never happen over in the other place, because this is the only place we can hold the executive to account. This is our role, and it's one that we, I think, should take very, very seriously. In terms of Odgers', I would just like to quote from page 7:

The most dangerous of all sinister interests is that of the executive government, because it is the most powerful.

Therefore, the Senate has a unique and special role to play, and the executive government in this place needs to do their part by treating senators and this chamber with respect.

The Attorney-General talks a lot about transparency, accountability and integrity. They're not just words; they're actually character traits and behaviours that you must exhibit not just as a citizen in your personal life but also, clearly and essentially and desperately, as someone that is in a position of power. We were quoting the A-G on 28 September 2022:

… we are serious about restoring trust and integrity to government.

Well, if you're serious about restoring trust and integrity to executive government, guess what? Table the documents that are ordered by the Senate.