Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

Estimates bingo—absolutely, Senator Pocock—a new game brought to you by the Labor Albanese government! The poor old public servants and bureaucrats—I feel for them! They're being placed in this invidious position by the Albanese Labor government. I actually really feel for them because of the pressure they're being placed under by this awful, awful manual. Who wrote this thing? It's extraordinary. And they put it in writing! It's shameless. It's obnoxious. It breaches every point of good public policy that has ever been invented. It just fails in so many avenues.

'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth' is a standard which I think the people of Australia reasonably expect their governments to uphold. It's a standard which the Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, said he was going to bring in via a new era of transparency. It's a new era, but it's not of transparency. It's a new era of obfuscation, deflection and not answering the question. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—that is the reasonable expectation that the people of Australia have of people sitting in this chamber and of those who participate in the estimates process.

Again, how dare you put our public servants in that invidious position? Most of them are trying to do their best. Then you apply this brutal political power to them when they are doing their best to answer questions from those on the crossbench and in the opposition. You put them all in a terrible, terrible position. It really is shameful. It's made even more shameful by the pledges and promises before the election. Before the election, we were promised openness and a new era of transparency. After the election—exhibit A, your honour—this is the manual. 'How to avoid answering a question.' It's about how to obfuscate legitimate questions in the Senate and stop them being answered. 'Deflect, divert, and refuse to respond.' It's absolutely shameful. And then they're trying to deflect with this nonsense like, 'You've asked questions about X, Y or Z.' Sorry; that isn't the point. The point is the manual, which speaks for itself. The people of Australia have every right to expect senators in this place and from bureaucrats and public servants to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Question agreed to.