Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

What really strikes me is when we come to very precise questions about, for example, things to do with budget transparency. Now, this is very relevant. Today is budget day. We are going into the two-week budget estimates period after this Senate sitting week. A very focused, precise question would be, for the portfolio, 'Please provide a list of the 10 largest estimates variations in the most recent financial year.' You don't get much more precise than that. It's a specific question, specific to the budget, time limited to the last financial year, on a particular issue—namely, estimates variations, where a government department has changed in the course of the year how much it thinks it's going to spend on a particular item. You should absolutely be able to table precisely what those estimates variations are. What does the Albanese government's secret little manual on how to not answer questions suggest as a response to this very precise question? 'The portfolio additional estimates statements inform the parliament of changes to the proposed allocation of resources since the budget. The PAES, annual Appropriation Bills (Nos. 3 and 4) and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) are tabled in the parliament usually in February each year.'

So when senators, whether it is a coalition senator, a Greens senator, Senator Babet or any other member of the crossbench, go and ask a precise and detailed budget question of the Albanese Labor government, what do they get fed in return? A bunch of bureaucratic jargon referring them to go and try to work it out from the budget papers themselves—information that won't actually be in those budget papers. You will not find, in the detail that is requested, the information the government is referring you to go and find in the budget papers. They're setting senators up to run around in little circles, like a dog chasing its tail, never actually getting the answer. That's the type of contempt we are seeing from the Albanese government when it comes to how it is treating the Senate, when it comes to transparency issues and when it comes to the approach to estimates.

What is so galling is that this is a government who made so much about these issues when in opposition. In 2022 Mr Albanese said:

The Australian people deserve accountability and transparency, not secrecy.

Well, this is the complete opposite of what Mr Albanese promised. He has actually taken lack of transparency, lack of accountability and government secrecy to a whole new level. The Prime Minister's office is directing, in a manual, government departments on how to avoid answering questions. You couldn't come up with a more precise example of the opposite of transparency. It's a scandal. The fact that the government, rather than coming in here apologising and saying, 'We're going to instruct our departments to ignore this, and we got it wrong,' instead came in here and said, 'It's no secret, and there's nothing to hide,' shows just how arrogant they are, just how out of touch they are and just how willing they are to break every single promise or commitment they made to the Australian people.