Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to this matter of public importance, and it is a matter of great public importance—namely, Labor's broken promises and woeful transparency as evidenced in the Senate budget estimates hearings. I've got pages I could speak to. I have absolute pages of this stuff. I have over 21 pages of this.

I must say, Senator Brown, I was searching for some references to you on the pages, and I haven't been able to find any. Or perhaps I'm just too polite and I've cast my eyes over them and moved to the next example.

But let's go to the first example I've got here in relation to what happened at estimates. For those in the gallery, we should explain that estimates are an absolutely fundamental process. They are fundamental to the role of this Senate chamber in terms of being a check and balance on executive power. It gives us—all senators, including the crossbench—the right to ask questions in relation to any matter which involves government expenditure, and that's just about anything, so it is a very, very important aspect of this Senate chamber discharging its responsibilities as a chamber of review.

The first point is the Defence budget cuts. Under questioning from Senator Birmingham, it was discovered in estimates that Labor has actually cut $1.5 billion from the Defence budget. One of the things that those who have not seen estimates before should delight in on their first interaction with the estimates process is that those in the government will try and come up with every single synonym for the word 'cut'. There might be 'reprofiling'. There might be 'reallocation'. There are all these words instead of 'cut', but, if there is less expenditure on a program tomorrow than there was today, that's a cut. That's what's happening in Defence. They cut $1.5 billion from the Defence budget. Not only that but the questioning by my good friend Senator Birmingham revealed they're still looking for another $1.8 billion of cuts. The poor Department of Defence. Not only has it had $1.5 billion cut from its budget but it actually has to go out and find an additional $1.8 billion in savings. That's in a high inflationary environment. That's in an environment where there are supply chain constraints and there is geopolitical uncertainty. It's the worst possible environment in which to be expecting our Department of Defence to actually have to make these sorts of cuts.

This is my second example. I actually sit on the legal and constitutional affairs committee. This is a classic estimates scenario. The government announces something, and then they work out, 'Gee, we were meant to go through a process before we announced it.' So they go through the process after they've announced what they were actually intending to do. This is in the context of the release of the Solicitor-General's advice. What happened in this context is the Solicitor-General gave some advice. The Attorney-General's Department's guidelines for briefing the Solicitor-General note:

Opinions of a Solicitor-General are confidential … The Office of Legal Services Coordination and the Solicitor-General's chambers must be consulted before any opinion of the Solicitor-General, or a former Solicitor-General, is provided to a person or body outside the Australian Government …

They must be consulted first. What happened? The Prime Minister made an announcement which was reported in the media at 2.31 pm on 22 August that the advice was going to be released. When did the consultation occur? The first time the Office of Legal Services Coordination heard about it was at 3.51 pm. So announcement, 2.31 pm; but consultation in accordance with the good governance procedure, 3.51 pm.

Third example—I've got pages of this stuff. It's like an episode of Utopia. I've got pages of it. The third example—I'll have to go through this one quickly and leave my colleagues to pick up the other examples. On Tuesday morning in the economics committee, Treasury secretary, Dr Steven Kennedy, confirmed under questioning from my good friend Senator Jane Hume that despite regularly briefing former prime ministers one-on-one about emerging economic issues, Prime Minister Albanese has not requested any briefing with the Treasury secretary on inflation. Not one briefing on inflation. (Time expired)