Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I'd also like to use this opportunity to support the comments and the call for improvement that Senator Hume made regarding the government's current tardiness in responding to questions on notice through the estimates process. I also want to reinforce the comments Senator Scarr made with regard to the primacy of this Senate chamber in securing information from the executive government and to support what Senator Bragg had to say.

I also have seen a number of examples, with regard to not just questions on notice but FOIs and OPDs, where, as Senator Scarr correctly pointed out, the timing of the release of information is not because the Treasurer's office is inefficient but because the information is released at politically motivated times. Without going into all the detail, one very powerful example was the release of documents with regard to the effigy on the $5 note. I was told that documents weren't available because my question had used the word 'portrait' and not the word 'effigy'—I kid you not—and so the release of the documents was withheld.

More recently, for FOIs with regard to the release of conversations between the Commonwealth government and state and territory governments over the GST distribution arrangements, the Treasurer's office has been—as I say in my office—playing ducks and drakes. They say, 'We can't find the documents,' 'There are too many documents,' or, 'There's a delay.' I don't expect the Treasurer himself to be poring over every FOI decision or OPD or question on notice—