Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Assistant Minister for Health (Senator Nash) to questions without notice asked by Senators Faulkner, Wong and McLucas today relating to circumstances surrounding the removal of a health star rating website.

What we saw today in question time was a minister desperately ducking and weaving and hiding from providing any proper information to this chamber about things she should have known and things in relation to which she has previously misled the chamber. She was asked some very straightforward questions, which ministers should be able to answer, about the appointment of her chief of staff, about whether or not she was aware of his shareholding, about when statements of interest were provided and, in particular, in a question from Senator Faulkner, she was asked about a particular public servant who did not do what the chief of staff obviously asked and then somehow, and completely independently, has been moved from that position within six days.

I want to focus on one particular point that arose in question time today in relation to the provision of the statement of private interests. If you look at the ministerial staff statement of private interests you will see that there is a requirement in it to include shareholdings of oneself, one's spouse and one's dependants. In relation to the shareholding of the chief of staff to the minister responsible for food regulation, the question is whether or not, at the time he was appointed, he had disclosed this shareholding. This is the shareholding that was subsequently disclosed on Tuesday night late in the Senate when the minister scurried in to quickly try and correct the record, some six hours after she had misled the Senate. That has not been answered, as to when that statement of interest was submitted and whether it disclosed his shareholding. There is an even more important point out of question time on this issue—that is, the involvement of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's office.

Let us be very clear: as Senator Abetz would recall, what this government has told the parliament, in Senate estimates, and the Australian people is that all staff appointments are the Prime Minister's staffing appointments. It is the Prime Minister who ultimately determines if someone is appointed. This is not my assertion; this is very clearly an assertion made by the government in the last Senate estimates. Interestingly today, when the Prime Minister was asked about the appointment of the minister's chief of staff, did he stand up and defend him?

Did he stand up and defend the minister? Did he say, as the minister has consistently bleated over and over again today, 'No conflict of interest'? No, he did not. Do you know what he said? 'It's been answered in the Senate. Go and look there.' It is not the most fulsome support I have seen from a prime minister. More importantly in many ways, today when Senator Nash was attempting to answer, or not answer, questions from me about the involvement of the Prime Minister and his office, she said: 'All information around my chief of staff was given to the Prime Minister's office in accordance with the appropriate timing.' I think that is called dropping the Prime Minister's office in it.

What is very interesting is that the minister was prepared to say, 'Well, I actually did give it to them. I did give it to the Prime Minister's office.' But the Prime Minister himself was not prepared to back his minister in question time today in the House of Representatives. What is very clear through all of this is that a government that promised to restore accountability and transparency—the Prime Minister's commitment—has been found this week to have misled the Australian people through this Senate. This week it has been found to be refusing to comply with its own standards. This government and this minister have refused to comply with their own statement for ministers and their staff. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a performance we have seen, although I will say that I have seen Senator Wong undertake the confected outrage much more seriously than that. It may have been when she was on this side of the chamber, but here we have a beat-up story against Senator Nash, who has answered every question to her in this Senate and who has come into this Senate and provided further information. The Labor Party is desperate to talk about something other than issues that matter to Australians, like jobs, because their own record is so poor. They try and confect one of these alleged conflict of interest claims by slandering people and, essentially, by asserting that, since someone once worked somewhere and that their wife is now the CEO and that they may have engaged with a company, that means they are disqualified from serving in a public office.

Let us look at the Labor Party's record. I am sick to death of hearing of these confected claims of conflict of interest from a party that practises it. This is a party that openly and proudly states that it is the political wing of the labour movement. When it is in office, all we see it do is funnel money to that labour movement. On 1 February each and every year we get the Australian Electoral Commission's periodic disclosures. What do we see in those disclosures? The shareholders, the funders, the owners of individual Senate seats in this chamber are the trade union movement. Let us look at Labor's record. How much money did they throw into the trade union movement when they were in office? There was $20 million handed over for trade union training. The previous coalition government got rid of public funding for the Trade Union Training Authority, because that is a job for unions. We do not hand over money to small businesses to do the jobs they are required to do, but you hand over money to unions which gets laundered through their system and handed back to you for political campaigns. And you try to allege that someone because of where they once worked or where their wife works has a conflict of interest—the gall!

Let us go through some other numbers. As well as the $20 million for trade union training—I know plenty of businesses that would like help like that, but they do not do anything in that space—there is money that goes to our favourite union in Victoria, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Construction and General Division Victoria Branch. In 2011 they were handed $458,034.50. It is a work to rule sort of culture, and so the CFMEU will count every cent of it. It was probably handed over by cheque, rather than some other means involved in the allegations of what is going on in the CFMEU in Victoria, where it tends to be loose notes in brown paper bags. This union also donates to the Labor Party. The description of the grant to the union was: 'assistance to provide Victorian building and construction workers training in language, literacy and numeracy integrated with units of competency from construction and business services training packages for WorkCover licences and accredited first aid courses'. That is just a cover for you handing over money to your shareholders. Every other business in Australia has to pay those costs itself, and the Labor Party hands over money to people to do their daily job and then those unions find the cash to hand back to the Labor Party come election time.

That is not the limit of it; there is money handed over to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union—$199,982 in 2011. It was to fund a project officer to assist labour market adjustment in the automotive manufacturing industry. It was Paul Keating who said that the AMWU had 100,000 manufacturing job scalps personally with a previous member of this place, Senator George Campbell.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you going to get close to the motion?

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The actual point, Senator Wong, is that the motion you have moved alleges a conflict of interest against Senator Nash because of where the wife of her chief of staff works and a shareholding that is in the process of being removed from that small business. None of you opposite has any experience of that, other than what you have done to Australia's manufacturing industry, and you have the gall to allege that. Yet you openly hand over millions of dollars to your organisation and you brag that you are the political wing of the labour movement. These are affiliated Labor Party bodies; these are bodies that write cheques to the Labor Party; these are bodies that have to declare political expenditure in favour of the Labor Party—although with some of them I will accept that they occasionally donate to the Greens. No-one takes your allegations seriously, and when the royal commission gets underway we are going to find out even more about your connections with dodgy union practices, especially in my home state of Victoria.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before I call Senator McLucas, I remind senators to address their remarks through the chair.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to take note of the answers given by Senator Nash today to questions from the opposition. The questions went to whether ministerial processes were followed, and, unfortunately, we did not receive enough answers. Potentially the minister has the opportunity to come back later and provide the Senate with the dates that Senator Wong, in particular, asked for. Senator Nash was also asked questions about the relationship between the minister's office and the Department of Health. Frankly, I found her answers to the questions from Senator Faulkner unconvincing. Serious allegations have been made, and they need to be answered. I encourage the minister to consider that.

But I will talk about the questions I asked the minister. They went to the purpose of the star-ratings website and to its removal. Let us first go to why there was going to be a star-ratings website. There was going to be a star-ratings website to assist the food manufacturing sector—which wished to adopt the voluntary food-labelling system—to go through the process of identifying what star rating their product would have. They want and need the website in order to be able to participate in the voluntary food-labelling system. The website is designed to provide consumers of manufactured food products with information about how healthy their products may or may not be. A lot of work has been done on food labelling. The work started some three or four years ago following the Blewett report and its advice to the government of the day that we should have a traffic-light system. It was not adopted by the government, and we went back to talk to the forum members—that is, the states and territories of our country and New Zealand—in order to find a system which would better serve consumers in our country.

The website was also to provide information to the community about how the star-rating system would work. It would have prepared consumers for the use of the system once manufacturers voluntarily took up the use of the star-rating system. I was very curious when the minister said that one of the reasons she took down the website is that no products on the supermarket shelves have the star-rating system. But she got the cart before the horse—in fact, we need to have the website to assist business to participate in the voluntary star-rating system.

The history of the website is long, but we are now at the point where there is agreement by state and territory ministers with responsibility for food—and by New Zealand, which participates sometimes in these discussions and sometimes not; at the moment New Zealand is watching to see whether it wants to participate as well. This forum has established a working group and is continuing into the future the assessment of the website as a tool.

I refer to the communique which was issued following the December meeting of the forum. In it, ministers indicate:

The Commonwealth Assistant Minister for Health, Senator the Hon. Fiona Nash, informed the forum that she will direct the Department of Health to broaden the cost-benefit analysis of front-of-pack labelling to include evidence-based research and extensive industry consultations in the absence of a Regulatory Impact Statement, which was not agreed to by the Forum.

This was not an agreed position of the forum; the Ministry is now working unilaterally, outside the agreed structure of coming to a position on food labelling in our country.

The other point I make is about what the public health sector want. What are they looking for? They have been campaigning for years so that we can provide consumers of manufactured food with good quality information about what they are purchasing. The system we currently have is not well taken up by consumers. We have what is called the 'daily intake guide'. (Time expired)

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers on the same matter. The government takes the statement of standards of ministerial staff very seriously. We have made that quite clear this week. Under the statement of standards:

… staff are required to take all reasonable steps to avoid, any conflict of interest (real or apparent).

I have known Senator Nash for 15 or 20 years. Her credibility and standing in the National Party are sky high. I think everyone in in this chamber would agree with that—everyone. I commend my colleague Senator Nash for giving very detailed statements to the Senate, and I commend her for their transparency.

What has amazed me in the debate here today is the hypocrisy and irony of what has been stated by those opposite. Senator Wong said that Senator Nash did not answer the question. I have been here for nearly six years. I have seen Senator Wong in government, down here on the ministerial benches. Perhaps I will get the library to research this, but I doubt if I ever heard Senator Wong answer a question in six years. We remember very clearly questions from Senator Cormann to Senator Wong when she was finance minister. All we got were ranting attacks on Senator Cormann and the opposition at the time; we never had a question answered. Whether it was about her involvement in water or in finance, the question was never answered.

Senator Wong spoke first in this debate on taking note of answers. She said that what Prime Minister Abbott had done did not appear to be 'fulsome support for the minister'. Let us turn the clock back. Minister Penny Wong in the previous government gave her support, as a left-winger in the Labor Party, to the left wing then Prime Minister, Ms Gillard. How long did her 'fulsome support' last? It was heading towards election time and the polls were looking terrible, so Minister Wong was one of those who were plotting to destroy the then Prime Minister, Ms Gillard. Is that what she defines as 'fulsome support'? Give us a break! She said: 'Let's do away with the Prime Minister. The polls are terrible. We're going to get wiped out. Bring back Mr Kevin Rudd; he might save the furniture in the house.' The irony of it is simply amazing.

Minister Wong refers to the misleading of the Australian people. Who was it who said, before the 2010 election, 'There will be no carbon tax'? Then Minister Wong, along with everyone else on that side and the Greens, goes out and brings in a carbon tax. They misled the people of Australia. The Greens didn't, of course—we knew their policy all along. But people like Mr Tony Windsor and Mr Rob Oakeshott—if you remember them—along with the Greens, held a political gun to Ms Gillard's head and said, 'We have to have the multiparty climate change committee' and then the carbon tax that we were never going to have. And the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Wong, talks about the misleading of the Australian people. I just find it amazing when people make these statements.

Senator McLucas said she found the answers unconvincing. I have found, in the almost-six years I have sat as a senator in this place, that the answers we were getting from opposition were not only unconvincing—give us a break: we could never get an answer! It didn't matter whether it was to Senator Ludwig about the abolition of the live export trade and the damage to our cattle industry; whether it was on finance; or whether it was to Senator Conroy and all these targets with the NBN, rolling out past premises everywhere. When we got into government, the minister found out that, of the 240,000 premises passed, you can't hook up 70,000—there is no technology to connect to them! But Senator Conroy was saying, 'We're going past all these premises; we're rolling this out'—this plan that was scratched out on the back of an envelope and discussed with the then Prime Minister. Who was the Prime Minister then? It was hard to keep up! I think it was Mr Kevin Rudd at the time. But they were going to bring out a plan.

I commend Senator Nash. She is a decent woman with decent principles and she will do a decent and very good job in her portfolio. I will not play these games that are being played by those opposite— (Time expired)

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is extremely disappointing to hear the tone in which this debate is being carried out. If we take Senator Williams' comments to heart, if that is the real argument that Senator Williams is putting up, then we may as well just close up, we may as well leave the Senate now, because the process seems to be that if some people did not feel that questions were effectively answered at a previous time then no question should be effectively answered at any time.

We have standing orders in this place that have been enshrined, and in fact only recently amended—and you would remember this, Mr Deputy President—under President Ferguson, when he left the presidency and had time to look at putting changes into the way we operated to ensure that we would have a system where people would be held to account. When ex-President Ferguson put those amendments to the standing orders through, there was an attempt to ensure answers to questions were directly relevant. From that time the direct relevance aspect has been used by the previous opposition and the now opposition to ensure that answers being given by ministers have direct relevance. We know that the President and yourself, Mr Deputy President, have both been known to say in this place many times that you cannot direct any minister how to answer a question. But what can be done—and what I believe must be done—is to ensure that, when an answer is given that does not have specific, direct relevance to the question asked, the minister's attention should be drawn to the question.

It seems to me that what we continue to do on a daily basis in this place is work through as best we can with the system we have, a system that is strong, a system for which we have effective standing orders and a system that it is our job in this place to look at, to learn about and to work within. In that context, it is the job of everybody in this place to be aware of the rules and to work with them. Of course there will be times when ministers, of all flavours in all governments, will take the opportunity to put their spin on the answer and to answer a question in the way they feel is best. And that is fine. But we cannot take away the responsibility to continue to ensure that when questions are asked, publicly and quite specifically, ministers need to respond with direct relevance.

That was why points of order were taken today to specific questions that were looking at specific timing issues. We do not believe that specific answers going to timing were given. That will be a point of contention; people will argue about that. I was going to talk more about food safety in my taking note but I was drawn to making this particular point because of comments that were made by previous speakers.

Also taking up a previous point, I say that we are not in any way questioning the decency of any minister—and in particular Minister Nash. To try and cloak any attempt not to answer questions, or to come into this place without looking specifically what has happened in this case, as some attack on the decency of a minister is not true. Basically, we are asking questions about process and we are seeking answers about process. Mr Deputy President, as you well know, that is a standard action of people in this place—and it should be. Whenever there is a question about how duties are actually done, what influences are there—and, in these cases, it is clearly pointed out—then there must be strict adherence to codes relating to any question of a conflict of interest. We all know that.

When the new government came into power they were very clear about the processes that they were going to put in place to ensure that the codes of conflict of interest were not going to be in any way confusing and would be adhered to strongly. That was a statement they made, as they should. So, when a question is raised, the answers should be given in the same way. It is not a personal attack; it is clearly an attempt to ensure that the system works well—and that not only the people in this place know what is going on but so do people in the wider community, because that is what makes our parliament strong.

We talk with pride about the way we operate in this place, our democratic principles and the way we ensure that due process is followed. Therefore it is our job to ensure that we work to make that happen. Questions must be asked to look into any confusion and any process and those questions should be answered. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.