Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Pocock on this motion. I myself have put in a number of motions throughout the term of this government requesting orders for the production of documents. Most recently, I wanted the business case for the $100 million that was spent on Avoca Drive. The reply was that the business case was prepared by the New South Wales government. I then asked for communications between the federal government and the state government as to how the New South Wales government justified this $100 million to be spent by the federal government, given that it was a New South Wales road, a state road, and a New South Wales responsibility. The reply I got to that was that, if they released the communication between the federal and state governments, it would damage state relations. And that, of course, is a complete load of tripe.

It's just one of the many examples that we've seen throughout the term of this government where they refuse to release documents. The whole point of government is accountability and transparency. Now, I've just started going to the whips meetings every night at seven o'clock. I have said to my colleagues who go to those meetings that I will always vote for an order for the production of documents because I just believe in that as a matter of principle. The coalition can't get too self-righteous about this, as well, because I know that they didn't release information when they were in government, and it needs to happen.

I'll give you another example. Just yesterday, I went to the community affairs committee because the minister for health refuses to release the primer that was used in the PCR test that was used to lock down 20 million people. Now, the primer that I'm asking for is just the simple combination of nucleotides that were used in that primer. That information is not unique and cannot be patented by the big pharmaceutical companies. That is Mother Nature doing its job, and I think that people are entitled to know what codons, what sequence and what length of sequence were used by big pharma to lock down 25 million people for two years. Yet again, we get more pushback from the minister for health. This time he said that it's commercial-in-confidence. Commercial-in-confidence is when you're asking for financial figures or the technology that's used in a PCR test. But the actual codons used that were in that virus are no secret. We know what the codons in the virus were. All I'm asking for is which part of the codons was used to actually justify locking people down. And, of course, yet again, the minister for health refuses to actually provide these documents.

Time and time again, I have asked the Bureau of Meteorology for the technology behind the homogenisation, and the reply to that was that actually they can't give it because there are too many iterations. I'll give you one example: there have been 400 million iterations to the maximum temperature at Marble Bar and 250 million iterations to the minimum temperature at Marble Bar, and it would be impossible to provide and impossible to audit. Of course, we've now found out that this convoluted contraption that they've come up with has blown out in costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yet again, I've asked the CSIRO in estimates, 'Can I please have the model used to calculate net zero.' Larry Marshall, the then head of the CSIRO, said, 'Which model?' I then said, 'What do you mean by that, Laz?' He said, 'We've got 40 different models.' I think, if we're going to go to net zero and spend billions of dollars getting there, the Australian public are entitled to know how this particular net zero figure is being calculated and why there are 40 different models. If the science is settled, why do you need 40 different models? I would have thought you'd have one model.

But, of course, it's just another example of the continual command-and-control fearmongering by both of the major parties. They'll create a catastrophe and catastrophise everything, and then, when you actually ask for evidence of why they want to catastrophise everything, they don't want to provide it. That is why we know that governments today are more interested in control than actually serving the people.

This motion by Senator Pocock has hit the nail on the head. There has been a record number of denials to orders for production of documents, and I can tell you that the Australian public are sick and tired of the secrecy within the bureaucracy in this government. I've just missed a phone call from another whistleblower. I was meant to talk to them at 1.30 today, thinking senator's statements were on tonight. I'm talking to them again at six o'clock at night. I have got whistleblowers coming out everywhere, wanting to call out the bureaucracy. Let's do it. Let's expose the corruption in government.

Question agreed to.