Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to talk to the issue of the lack of transparency and the unwillingness to reveal critical information that the Senate needs to do its job. This isn't new, of course—it's a pattern, and it goes across all shades of government—but it undermines democracy. It undermines good decision-making. How on earth can we make good decisions if we haven't got a body of evidence in front of us? Trying to make decisions that will suit a particular perspective and ignore the evidence that suits the other is the sort of thing that totally undermines people's trust in our democracy, because people know that decisions are being made on a political basis rather than on an evidence basis. It would be wonderful in this place if we could agree. Even if we disagree on what to do about a problem, let's at least get all of the evidence on the table about what the problem is. Then we can have a sensible discussion about how to move forward. As I said, the unwillingness and refusal of the government to release these documents is something that has been characteristic of governments of both Labor and coalition persuasions for a very long time. This government said they were going to be different, but they have been exactly the same.

I have currently got an ongoing process going through freedom of information for documents related to sports rorts from the previous government, and the department is still fighting. They're appealing against having to release these documents. You remember sports rorts: the manipulation of funding for party political purposes, which the ANAO did an incredibly scathing report about. It dates back to before the 2019 election. That's a very long time. There was a critical document that this Senate requested through an order for the production of documents that we did not get. It's related to the so-called talking points memo that an adviser in then minister McKenzie's office prepared for the minister before a meeting with the Prime Minister. This document was blocked. It was not provided through the order for production of documents. I have been pursuing it through freedom of information, and we are now at the stage where the Information Commissioner has agreed that the document should be released. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said three weeks ago, 'Yes, this document should be released.' However, the department has had four weeks to appeal. That four weeks is up on Wednesday, in two days time. We will see whether the department, under this government, is still trying to hide information from the public that is critical for an understanding of good governance. It's critical to be laying bare the information that is being used and the misinformation that is being misused in decision-making in this place.

We've also got an order for production of documents at the moment about issues relating to a contract which was incredibly dodgy, supposedly improving the operations of Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is an incredibly important institution in this country, but the department employed a contractor who, frankly, did an appalling job and divided the Meals on Wheels community across the country. There is a whole range of documents that I'm trying to seek at the moment, to unpack just how badly this contract was managed by the department and the poor job that the contractor did. But we're still waiting on those documents. Again, if we actually had the evidence base we could say: 'This is what's happened. This is the information that we need in order to be able to make some rational evidence based decisions moving forward.' But what it goes to is that governments of both persuasions aren't interested in evidence based decisions. They aren't interested in making decisions that properly evaluate the information on the table. What they are interested in is making decisions that suit their mates. What they are interested in is trying to pull the wool over our eyes about decisions, because it's information that suits their mates. That's what has such a corrupting influence on our democracy. It's what makes people not trust what governments do. Transparency of information is incredibly important in good governance. That's why this issue is so critical.