Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation provided to the Senate by the Minister representing the Treasurer on the failure of the government to comply with the resolution of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee.

I thank Senator McAllister, who was a member of that committee for many, many years, for the explanation that she has now given on behalf of the Treasurer. Of course, the Labor Party talked a very big game about transparency and accountability when they came to government. The Prime Minister said last year that Australian people deserve accountability and transparency. But, when it comes to Labor, you have to look at what they do and not at what they say. There were, in fact, 16 questions asked of the Department of the Treasury at budget estimates back in late May and early June this year. Those answers were tabled the day before or on the actual day of supplementary budget estimates in October, three months later.

The government has pointed to—and, I'm sure, will continue to point to—the number of questions received on notice as an excuse for lateness. I'm terribly sorry if governing is so hard for you. The evidence provided by Treasury to the committee was very, very clear. Treasury departmental officials did their job. They drafted those answers, and then they provided those draft answers to either the Treasurer's office or the relevant Treasury minister's office. In all but one case, they did this before those answers on notice were due. After that, what happened seems a little bit unclear. The offices had plenty of time to review them, but then they didn't provide them to the committee. They didn't provide them to the Senate economics committee, and it's not clear why. What we do know is that the office had them for, in some cases, up to 134 days. That's how long the Treasurer's office sat on these questions on notice. In one case, the answer to one of those questions was one sentence. I'm not sure how hard this should be. These answers to questions that were put by the Senate of Australia languished somewhere in the Treasurer's office for months and months before they were finally provided to the committee, as I have said, the day before—and some were provided the day of—supplementary budget estimates. How transparent. How honest. Such integrity and openness to scrutiny! Let's do government differently, shall we?

At estimates, as these responses were trickling in and officials were at the desk, I asked:

… we have just received questions on notice from Treasury that were asked at the last estimates, and to be honest it's outrageous and quite frankly almost contemptuous that we should be receiving those questions on notice less than 24 hours before they appear again.

The Treasury secretary responded:

I do understand there are 11 questions on notice that haven't been answered. I apologise to the committee for not having done that. We'll do our best to get those answers to you quickly.

But it became very clear very quickly that in fact the Treasury secretary was covering for his boss. It was soon discovered that Dr Kennedy and his team at Treasury had sent the responses to the Treasurer's office months before he said that. Imagine the Treasurer putting his departmental secretary and—let's not forget—his former colleague, Dr Kennedy, in that professionally uncomfortable, invidious position, to have to cover for what can only be one of two things: it's either the Treasurer's incompetence or his contempt for the Senate and the Senate's processes.

At least Senator Gallagher, as the Minister representing the Treasurer at Senate estimates, understood how unacceptable this approach was and the disregard that it showed to the Senate. She agreed with the Treasury secretary. She said:

Yes, I think—and you have heard from officials—that answering questions in the time that's provided by committees is really important. … Also, I do hear the commitments from Treasury to continue to work to improve that response time.

I didn't hear that commitment reiterated by Senator McAllister today. Clearly, Minister Gallagher too, as someone who has repeated the assertions of transparent government, did not appreciate being put in the position from her colleague in the other place of having to apologise to senators on his behalf in that committee. Both the Treasury secretary and the Minister representing the Treasurer were sitting there covering up for the Treasurer, who had made the active decision to hold questions in his office for months and then table them during the hearing. Now Senator McAllister has to stand in here and apologise to the chamber for the Treasurer's contempt of the Senate and its role as a house of review.

If the Treasurer has left it to others to clean up his mess, to cover up for his incompetence and to cover up for his contempt for this chamber that is disrespectful to his cabinet colleagues, to the Minister for Finance, to Senator McAllister and to the committee chair, Senator Walsh. It is not just disrespectful to the opposition; it is disrespectful to this entire chamber. The Treasurer has sent you in to do his dirty work, Senator McAllister. Perhaps the Treasurer should send in another nameless spokesperson, as he seems to favour doing, to make a comment about his decision to delay these answers and bury them in the Treasurer's office, yet another person from his staff to send in to do his dirty work. If the Treasurer's staff are listening today, chuckling to themselves down in the ministerial wing with the blue carpet, just remember that the Treasurer is using you, too. He is using you, as he has used so many others as another person sent in to clean up the Treasurer's incompetence or malice—talk about embarrassing and humiliating.

The Treasurer and his junior ministers, including the coalition's favourite, the self-opening pinata of Assistant Treasurer Jones, are hiding behind Treasury officials and their Senate colleagues rather than admitting that these are political delaying tactics. Why are they refusing to answer these questions? What are you trying to hide? Let's be honest, they are not difficult questions to answer. This is the Australian Senate, and Australians deserve to know what the government is doing—not the spin that they are putting on what they are doing, but what they are actually doing. The scrutiny of the Senate is for exactly that. These are the kinds of questions the Treasury have had to cover up because the fact is that the Treasurer hasn't answered them. Let me give you an example. One question was about tax. The question was:

… whether there have been, for either the Treasury or Treasury ministers, any briefings, discussions, calls, meetings or contacts at a ministerial level with the Victorian government on this issue already or whether there are any planned?

For months the Treasurer sat on this illuminating, scandalous response:

Treasury is not aware of any briefings, discussions, calls or meetings between the Treasury or Treasury Ministers and the Victorian Government on the recent tax changes announced in Victoria’s 2023-24 Budget.

Oh, my goodness, alert the media! Why was that one late?

In June, as part of budget estimates, my colleague Senator McKenzie asked:

Has Treasury done an internal response to the 5-year Productivity Inquiry as it relates to infrastructure?

Again, it was not really a big ask. The response provided to the committee was this:

Treasury has not developed a single internal response to the Productivity Inquiry report, Advancing Prosperity, including as it relates to infrastructure.

That sounds like it took an awful lot of work! It's not exactly what you'd expect from the department of a treasurer who recently came out and said that he was going to cut infrastructure because he simply has no other plan to fight inflation. This is pretty basic stuff.

In May, Senator Bragg asked how many measures from the productivity inquiry advancing prosperity report are in the 2023-24 budget. The response drafted by Treasury was provided to the minister's office on 26 June, but it wasn't until 25 October, four months later, that a response was received. We've now received a few more additional responses—I'm hoping, to question No. BET130 on the RBA's monetary statement and to question No. BET161 on the labour market. I think they still might remain at large. However, they may well have sat in that black hole of the Treasurer's office.

Rather than giving the Senate and the people of Australia via the Senate the responses to the questions on these key policy issues, the Treasurer continues to hide behind his department. We will continue to pursue these matters, and we will use these motions to draw them from those opposite. I remind the Senate that it was those Labor senators opposite who referred the tax commissioner to this chamber's Privileges Committee for preventing information being given to the Senate. I trust that they are ready to do the same if people outside this place continue to treat it with the contempt that has been shown by this Treasurer.