Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I table a letter responding to the order for the production of documents agreed to by the Senate yesterday.

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 minister's response.

Only one document was tabled, which was a letter from the minister. The minister was ordered by this chamber—I hope Centre Alliance are listening, because they say they care about transparency—to table transcripts of the phone call; any notes taken by the Prime Minister, his office or officials; any briefings by the department or office for the purpose of the phone call; and any advice to the Prime Minister about the appropriateness of the call. Instead I get a brief letter, now handed to me across the table by Senator Mathias Cormann. He refers to the answers the Prime Minister has made in the House. He refers to an answer of the New South Wales police commissioner. He refuses to deny the existence of documents. He says documents of the kinds requested, if they existed, would not be able to be produced because they'd be the subject of a PII claim, because this matter concerns police inquiries.

This is transparency from this government, from the Morrison government. This is the transparency and integrity, or lack thereof, of the Morrison government. The reality is this: this is a scandal that is engulfing the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, but it goes right to the heart of the Morrison government. It is a scandal which demonstrates, yet again, that this government, under Mr Morrison, doesn't like scrutiny. They don't like scrutiny, they don't like transparency and they certainly don't like accountability. As the Leader of the Opposition said: when the Prime Minister talks about the quiet Australians, he really wants everyone to shut up and listen to him. That's actually what he means.

The Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction was caught out using doctored documents to attack the mayor of Sydney. While energy prices keep going up and while emissions keep going up, he reckons it's smart to spend his time attacking the mayor of Sydney. I wonder whether his colleagues are sitting there, as they have to keep defending yet another Angus stuff-up, yet another 'Taylorgate' issue, and asking: what did he think he was doing? What does he reckon his job is? Why is a federal cabinet minister picking a fight with the mayor of Sydney?

Not only did the attack fail, it blew up in his face because it was based on a lie. It was based on a false document; it was based on a doctored document. The document spectacularly overstated travel expenditure by the City of Sydney reported in the 2017-18 annual report by an absurd amount. But the fake document was disseminated, by his own admission, by this minister, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. He has repeatedly told the Parliament of Australia that it was downloaded from the City of Sydney website. But you know what? He has produced no evidence to support his claim. None!

On the other hand, the City of Sydney says it never published the fake document. And, unlike the minister, who has not provided one shred of evidence to support his assertion to the parliament, the City of Sydney has produced credible evidence in the form of metadata and is further supported by evidence from public internet archives.

The minister tries to dodge scrutiny by describing this fiasco as a 'conspiracy theory' and a 'grubby smear'. It's a bit like the way in which the questions about Brian Houston's invitation to the White House were simply gossip because Mr Morrison doesn't want to answer them. But we've had a New South Wales police strike force, Strike Force Garrad, established to investigate the matter and determine if offences under the New South Wales Crimes Act have been committed, and we know from reports that they are coming to Canberra to interview this embattled minister.

Faced with the scrutiny of his minister and of his government, the Prime Minister didn't do the right thing—but he did panic. He telephoned the New South Wales police commissioner and meddled and interfered in the investigation into Mr Taylor. What other Australian gets to pick up the phone and telephone the police commissioner when their mate is under investigation? Police should be able to conduct investigations independently and without interference—this really shows something about this Prime Minister's ethics.

The government continues to hide the truth about what really went on here. That is why, within this motion, we were seeking the documents that I described at the outset. Australians have a right to know what occurred on 26 November. We should not have a situation where a prime minister repeatedly phones a police commissioner to interfere in an investigation, because it appears from the police commissioner's answer that he only answered on the fourth call. So we've got a PM of the country ringing up—ring, ring, missed call; ring, ring, missed call; ring, ring, missed call—because he really wants to have a chat to the police commissioner about his mate.

When the Prime Minister calls a head of an agency or a department, regardless of jurisdiction, there should also be a process that's followed. This week we found out that the Attorney-General was also in on the call. Imagine that: the police commissioner having the Prime Minister and the first law officer of the land on the phone to probe him about an ongoing investigation into a senior member of the Prime Minister's team. Justice must not only be done; it must also be seen to be done. People in this country need to have confidence in our criminal justice system, and that confidence can only be undermined when the most powerful person in the country and the Attorney-General involve themselves in a criminal investigation because it smacks of and looks like interference. And the fact that the Attorney-General can't come clean on this scandal really tells us everything we need to know about this dodgy government. It is a government that doesn't like scrutiny, a government that doesn't like transparency, a government that doesn't like accountability and a government whose integrity is in tatters.

Mr Taylor doesn't appear to think that the normal rules apply to him. He doesn't appear to be able to open his mouth without saying something misleading. He misled the readers of The Daily Telegraph;he's misled the parliament. Apparently he's been misleading the parliament since his very first speech, claiming to have gone to Oxford with Naomi Wolf, who was living in New York at some time. That's a pretty good move, isn't it? How many people have actually misled the parliament in their very first speech? That is a real—

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Start as you mean to go on.

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

Yes, you start as you intend to leave. Of course, Australians know that when we say 'misleading' the parliament, it's a euphemism for the word 'lying'. And we know that the 'Taylor-made' scandal isn't the minister's first rodeo because the boy who cried, 'Naomi Wolf!' has already been embroiled in three other scandals this year.

He has routinely failed to disclose his financial interests. In relation to the latest matter—just what we uncovered this week—serious questions have been raised over an $80 million water purchase to a company of which he used to be a director that's owned by a Cayman Islands based company he helped to set up. And he failed to declare shares in a company being investigated for poisoning critically endangered grasslands. And just like the Prime Minister did, on that occasion he rang his mate to try and fix it. Remember? He dropped Mr Frydenberg in it. But he refuses to be accountable, and this Prime Minister won't hold him accountable. In fact, Mr Morrison misled the parliament himself four times trying to defend Angus Taylor. It appears that the normal rules that apply to everyone else don't apply if you're in 'Club ScoMo'.

Paragraph 7.1 of the Ministerial Standards provides for a minister who is subject to an official investigation to be stood aside by the Prime Minister. Senator Sinodinos stood aside from cabinet when he was called as a witness before the New South Wales commission against corruption. It was the right thing to do. Other ministers have done the right thing and stood aside when allegations of improper conduct have been made, but this Prime Minister refuses to enforce these ministerial standards. No matter how low Mr Taylor goes, no matter how many mistakes or misleads he makes, no matter how many times he is not up-front—and, dare I say, uses false information—Mr Morrison refuses to stand him aside. Instead the Prime Minister himself misleads the House while defending his minister—four times. What this demonstrates is that honesty and integrity are not a priority for Mr Morrison or this government. There is one standard for Mr Morrison and his mates and another standard for every other Australian. If Mr Morrison and this government had a shred of integrity, a shred of decency, they would release the documents that the Senate has required, apologise to the Australian people and stand aside the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction.

The many scandals in which Mr Taylor has been involved have tainted the Treasurer, tainted the Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations and tainted the Prime Minister. Mr Taylor stubbornly refused to correct the record on the origin of this doctored document. Who is he covering for and why has Mr Morrison not directed him to come clean? Why is this Prime Minister so stubborn and so arrogant that he believes that he and Mr Taylor and other ministers should not be accountable to the parliament? Or is there some other reason why he keeps protecting Mr Taylor even as the political and ethical costs keep mounting?

We on this side of the chamber will continue to hold this government to account. We will continue to shine a light on this grubby conduct because Australians deserve honesty, decency and transparency in government, not the scandals and trickery of those opposite.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an insult to the Australian people! We've got a situation where the Senate collectively required Senator Cormann to place certain information on the record and, at one second to midnight—or perhaps I should say one second to noon, given the time of day—he waltzes into this chamber and hands a letter to Senator Wong which, as I rise to debate, I still have not seen. That is no criticism of Senator Wong but it is every possible criticism of Senator Cormann. He is denying the Senate the opportunity to have an informed debate. What we can surmise from Senator Wong's contribution is that Senator Cormann has failed to comply with an order of the Senate.

Let's be very clear about this: the Prime Minister should never have made this telephone call. It was a clear attempt to use his personal relationship with the New South Wales police commissioner to either influence the course of the New South Wales police investigation into Mr Taylor or otherwise discover information that should not have been available to Mr Morrison and certainly would not have been available to any other ordinary Australian person in this situation. But not only should the PM not have made this call; the Attorney-General should not have allowed him to make this call. How extraordinary it is that we now know that the Attorney-General was in fact with the Prime Minister when he made that call—at the very least an implicit endorsement by the Attorney-General of the Prime Minister's decision to make this call. So these are two gross failings here from the Prime Minister and from the nation's first law officer.

The New South Wales police commissioner should never have accepted this call. It looks shocking, it looks dodgy and it stinks to high heaven. In other words, the optics are extremely poor. Secondly—and I'll use a military analogy here—the Prime Minister is not in the line of command of the New South Wales police commissioner. The New South Wales police commissioner does not report to the Prime Minister; he reports to the New South Wales police minister.

So this call should never have been made by the Prime Minister, it should never have been endorsed by the Attorney-General and it never should have been taken or accepted by the New South Wales police commissioner—three gross errors of judgement from people who should have known better. Former Liberal staffer Nikki Savva said, 'Someone should have said to him "Do not make that call."' I completely agree with Ms Savva there. She also said, 'Porter, as the first law officer of the land … should have grabbed the phone out of his hand and said, "Don’t do this; it’s not a good idea."' Again, I completely agree with Ms Savva there. They are three gross errors of judgement that call into question this government's capacity to act in a lawful and meaningful way.

This is a shocking example of how power truly operates in Australia today. It's also a shocking example of how the Liberals think they are above the law and above basic standards of propriety. Put simply, this government do not respect the rule of law and they certainly do not respect the Senate and the parliament. To those people listening who wonder why the rule of law is so important, let me explain. The rule of law is one of the foundations of our democracy. It is one of the principles that stand between a Liberal democracy and a totalitarian or fascist regime. We have to ensure that the doctrine of the separation of powers is respected and maintained, and that includes not only the separation of powers between parliaments and courts but also the separation of powers between governments and police investigators. The Australian people have a right to know that when there is a criminal investigation underway, which there currently is, it will be conducted without fear, without favour and the cards will fall where they may. Right now, we've got a situation where, quite reasonably, there will be many people in the country asking whether they can have confidence in this New South Wales police investigation because the Prime Minister intervened in such an extraordinary manner.

Let's be clear about why we're even discussing this today. Minister Taylor and his office passed on apparently forged documents to The Daily Telegraph in order to smear a political opponent. We don't know who forged those documents but, on the face of it, whoever did is guilty of a crime and potentially more than one crime. That question—who forged these documents, who committed these crimes—is exactly what the New South Wales police are currently investigating. The Prime Minister should never have made this call. The Attorney-General should never have allowed him to make the call, or endorse him making the call, and the New South Wales police commissioner should never have accepted that call.

Unfortunately, we are still talking about Minister Taylor here. The Prime Minister should have stood him aside while this investigation into the potential commission of a crime is underway. In fact, that's what the ministerial code of conduct says should have occurred. That code, by the way, is written by the Prime Minister and should be enforced by the Prime Minister. Given Minister Taylor has decided to dig in, huddle down, keep his head down and ride this political storm out, and given that he has refused to offer to the Prime Minister to stand aside, the Prime Minister should now stand him aside. Ministers hold their commissions from the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister, so the buck stops with the PM here. The Prime Minister should stand Minister Taylor aside until this investigation is complete.

That we would have a phone conversation between the PM and the New South Wales commissioner of police, relating to an investigation of a potential crime by a federal minister, with the Attorney-General present, and that there would be no notes made or transcript taken of that phone call, beggars belief. We are left with only two conclusions that can be drawn here: that there are notes or a transcript, and Senator Cormann has refused to comply with an order of the Senate to produce them, or that the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General are running such shambolic offices and such a shambolic government that they would struggle to organise a beer in a brewery.

Now, it's one or the other. Either there are notes or a transcript, and they have not been provided in accordance with the order for the production of documents, or it is 'beer in a brewery time' inside our government, which portends very poorly for the Australian people. There are any number of crises that need to be dealt with by this government, headed up by the climate emergency and the complete and utter breakdown of our climate that is occurring before our very eyes. That's what the government should be focused on, not on whistling out of orders from the Senate and running a shambolic, chaotic and disorganised government. The minister needs to come clean and he needs to comply with the order. (Time expired)

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the matters that have been raised by Senator Wong and the order for the production of documents. One of the advantages of coming to this place after a career outside parliament is having a bit of life experience and perspective. I can remember a time when the standards of ministerial integrity were different from those of the current government. I can remember when John Howard, the leader who is supposed to be the model for Scott Morrison, parted with at least five ministers when they breached the ministerial code of conduct in the 1990s. How the world has changed! The Liberal Party has ultimately inflicted on us all the Prime Minister who thinks he is above the rest of us. This is a Prime Minister who is above the standards that the Australian public rightly demands from this parliament. Shame on the Prime Minister, and shame on the government that he is supposed to be leading.

Last week we saw the parliament reject this government of no integrity, which had the gall to bring in the ensuring integrity bill. This was a repressive piece of legislation designed to kneecap unions ahead of a full-force attack on the working conditions of ordinary people. Where is the integrity in continuing to punish Australians with stagnant wages and a stalling economy, and then going after the very organisations designed to lift up working people so that their voice can be heard in our industrial relations system? Where is the integrity in going after journalists who are just doing their job? Where is the integrity in moving the secondary boycott laws, which stop ordinary people from speaking out against companies that are doing the wrong thing? Can you believe it? A law to stop ordinary people from speaking out on secondary boycott matters!

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a protection racket.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a protection racket that this government is running! And they're running it for themselves and their mates.

This Prime Minister's response to the scandals of his energy minister, Angus Taylor, is just the latest example of a leader with no integrity. By now, we're all aware of the course of events that have led us to this point. Angus Taylor, the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, issued from his office a doctored document with false travel expenditure figures—which also, miraculously, appeared on the front page of The Daily Telegraphin order to discredit a political opponent, in this case, of course, the Lord Mayor of Sydney. His accusations in a letter to Clover Moore were that the City of Sydney council had racked up an incredible $15.9 million on travel in a single year. Of course, the real figure was less than $6,000. The minister is still insisting that this document was downloaded from the City of Sydney website—unbelievable!—despite all the evidence that shows that the travel expenditure figures he has cited are wrong and that no such document with these doctored figures ever existed on the website of the City of Sydney council.

Instead of providing a full and frank explanation to this parliament and to the Australian people, the minister has yet to explain how his office came into possession of these doctored travel figures. We have come to expect slippery statements from the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, but what is more alarming is the Prime Minister's response. Has he demanded that his minister explain himself fully and frankly to the parliament and the Australian people? No, he hasn't. And when it became clear that the New South Wales police were investigating the alleged use of fraudulent documents by one of his ministers, did this Prime Minister insist that his minister stand aside while the investigation was taking place? No, he didn't.

Instead of acting with integrity, this Prime Minister is acting like Donald Trump. This is a full-Trump moment from the Prime Minister. Scott Morrison made the Trumpian call to the New South Wales police commissioner. This is a Prime Minister who openly proclaims himself to be a friend of the police commissioner and was a former neighbour of his in the shire. I can say this: I came from the shire. In actual fact, I've had a few beers in a few of those hotels. Let's try the pub test. Down at Northies at Cronulla: how many people down at Cronulla would say that what the Prime Minister has done is right? How many people at Caringbah Inn would say that? Let's try another pub test: Taren Point Hotel and Miranda Hotel. It doesn't pass the pub test. He sees fit to use his personal position to ring and get the details of an investigation. That is inappropriate. That requires answers and requires documents to be produced. This is a call that, if the Prime Minister had integrity, would have been made by a non-political official such as the Secretary of Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. That would seem to be absolutely logical. In fact, I have talked to many on the other side, and they are amazed that they did not use and appropriately have somebody appropriate steps away from the Prime Minister, from elected officials.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Arrogance.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The arrogance of this Prime Minister is dumbfounding. Mr Morrison went ahead and made the call himself knowing full well that, as Prime Minister, he was making a political call. This didn't happen in an authoritarian country; it happened here in Australia. This is the same thing that happens in Donald Trump's Washington. We have a Prime Minister who seems to think this conduct is okay. It's not. 'A bit of an innocent chat'—that's all it was, he said. How inappropriate. How many mates in the shire are picking up the phone to make a call about these serious matters? There's one: the Prime Minister. They say there's nothing to see here. The fact that the call was made is inappropriate. The fact that the call was made after a series of calls made to the police commissioner is inappropriate. The fact that these steps were made by our Prime Minister is inappropriate.

Those who thought that the Attorney-General, Christian Porter, might, as the first law officer in the nation, counsel restraint and proper process in this case will be unfortunately disappointed because it appears that he was actually an enabler. The first most important person for justice in this country enabled the Prime Minister to ring the New South Wales police commissioner—as Prime Minister—to find out details of a police investigation into one of his own ministers. Donald Trump would be proud. Apparently he's an enabler of a highly inappropriate intervention into the police investigation of a minister. But don't take my word for it; let's take the word of the senior judge and former head of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, David Ipp. He called the call made by the Prime Minister 'not appropriate'. Mr Ipp told The Guardian this week:

You can't see that it's information that relates to matters of state interest. It can only relate to matters of party interest. If it relates to matters of party interest then he's using his influence as prime minister to try to obtain the information so that he can make the politically correct decision – that is, whether to keep Taylor or to fire him.

I don't think that's appropriate.

It's time this government and this Prime Minister show some integrity. The parliament and the Australian people are waiting. It's critically important that this government comes clean with every document at hand. This isn't where you just try to avoid your responsibility; this is where you take responsibility, and this government has failed to do that in the worst of circumstances, when the Prime Minister is involved.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike many people in the chamber and the parliament, and certainly people watching this debate outside the parliament, I've had an opportunity to review the correspondence from Senator Cormann to the President. It makes it very clear that the fix is in as far as the Liberal and National parties are concerned. What happened here, as Senators Wong and Sheldon have outlined, is that under some pressure, confronted with a criminal investigation by Strike Force Garrad in the New South Wales Police Force, the Prime Minister of Australia did the only thing that he knows how to do: he rang his little mate, the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force.

There were many other courses available to the Prime Minister over the course of this sordid saga, but he chose the only one that he knew how to do, and that's to ring his mate, to exert pressure, to change the story, to make it a different dynamic and to make it very clear to the New South Wales Police Force that this was a matter that the highest elected official in the land was taking a direct and keen interest in. He made that phone call to prevail upon him, to make it clear. That's a very unusual thing for a Prime Minister to do. I'm not sure in Australian political history how often a sitting Prime Minister would have called a commissioner of police in relation to an investigation into one of his or her own ministers. I'm certain that no previous Prime Minister would have done it. I am certain that Prime Minister Howard would not have done it. It's clear to me that the correspondence from Senator Cormann is really just bouncing the direction of the Senate, the order to produce documents.

I think it's very important that those on the crossbenches pay attention to what is happening here today and make a decision about whether the authority of the Senate is going to be respected, whether the role of the Senate is going to be respected or whether it's going to be treated and continue to be treated with the kind of contempt that the government is treating it with. It's absolutely clear that nobody from the government is here to speak in this debate today. It's not for tactical reasons that there's nobody here from the government to speak on this debate. It's not because they're keen to get on with whatever passes for a legislative agenda from this miserable shell of a government. It's because they haven't got the courage to debate these issues. It's because—you can see it in their faces—they absolutely lack confidence in two things. Firstly, those opposite lack confidence in the integrity of Mr Taylor, the member for Hume, and they lack confidence in the story that he's telling the parliament and the people of Australia. Secondly, increasingly, they lack confidence in this Prime Minister. They lack confidence in his approach to governance because they'll have been getting the message back that this is so shonky, this is so bent, this is so wrong that the government's not prepared to provide the details of this telephone conversation. There's nobody here now and there'll be nobody in question time except those with the rebuttals and the glib answers. That is something that former prime ministers would never have done.

This last fortnight of the sitting year has apparently all been about integrity—integrity from a government that wouldn't know integrity if it bit them on the face, integrity from a government that found itself winning an election that it didn't believe it would win. There's an absent legislative agenda, and it doesn't know what it's doing with the reins of government and has no plan to deal with the real issues for the Australian people. The only thing the government feel deeply is a sense of smug entitlement that's about them relying upon their little mates to protect their little interests and preserve this miserable government for just a few more minutes.

There are important principles here of transparency and decency. A telephone call was made that should not have been made. It's always the cover-up, not necessarily the crime, that becomes an unfolding disaster for governments that don't know what they're doing and don't put principle before politics. It was a telephone call that should not have been made. It turns out that the first law officer of the land was present. There must be records of what was said, and, if there are not records of what was said, that is a scandal in itself. What have they got to hide?

Over three months of this sordid scandal unfolding before the Australian people, Minister Taylor won't say where this document came from. He has claimed to the parliament that his office or him—it's not clear to me—downloaded it from the City of Sydney website. We know that is not true. So who did he get it from? It is extraordinary that this has gone on for three months and this character is unable to provide the people of Australia with that assurance. What on earth is a minister of the Crown doing smearing a local government official? What on earth is Minister Taylor doing? I know that big talk about bagging the Lord Mayor of Sydney or whatever other obscure government official Minister Taylor wants to tangle with might be big at the Centre for Independent Studies or whatever obscure ultra-Right organisation it is that he goes to tea with, but what possible public interest is there in a minister of the Crown providing fraudulent, forged and clearly incorrect documents to a tabloid newspaper to encourage a first-page story that is, on the face of it—a three-minute sniff test—demonstrably untrue?

The idea that a local council could spend $16 million on travel is actually logistically impossible. The councillors would have had to have been travelling every day, seven days a week. It wasn't $16 million; the real figure was close to $6,000. This is a bloke who came to the parliament with big promise amid breathless accounts that he was future Prime Minister material. He had apparently Kennedy-esque good looks. I assume they're talking about JFK, not Teddy Kennedy. Breathtakingly brilliant, he was described as. Well it's all come shuddering to a halt. First it was Jam Land and the grasslands catastrophe, where this bloke, when challenged about his private interests on a property brought the environment minister in for a chat, just like the Prime Minister brought the police commissioner in for a chat. Then, through venal self-interest, there was the purchase of water entitlements not properly disclosed, not properly conducted.

These jokers over there spent question time yesterday blaming the Labor Party for the problems they are confronting. This is an entirely self-inflicted catastrophe. It's what happens when you have a culture of entitlement that puts self-interest—your own interest—and the interest of your mates in front of the public interest, the parliament's interest, the interest of you performing your role as a public official. Well, this week—the police will be coming to Canberra to interview Minister Taylor. It is high time that Senator Cormann came clean with the Senate, released the full transcript of this telephone call and behave with the decency this parliament has a right to expect.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on what was meant to be a debate about the disclosure of documents related to a phone call that the Prime Minister made to a former neighbour—who happens to be the police chief—who happens to be investigating one of the Prime Minister's ministers, but we don't have those documents. Because what the Senate was given by the Prime Minister's representative in this place was one page saying—and I will paraphrase—'The rules don't apply to us. We're not going to tell you.' I will be a little more specific. At one point the letter says:

Plainly, any documents of the kind requested, if they existed, would not be able to be produced, as they would probably be the subject of public interest immunity. That immunity would arise because the matter concerns police inquiries by State authorities.

So let me get this right. It's not in the public interest to disclose something about police inquiries but it's okay to interfere in police inquiries by phoning the guy doing the inquiry to see if that inquiry is actually happening and if your minister really is in strife? You can't have it both ways. It's either in the public interest and should be disclosed or it's in the public interest and you shouldn't have interfered in the first place. So I'm afraid Senator Cormann and the government he represents in this chamber are once again thumbing their noses at the rules. They don't want to comply with this order for production of documents, much like with the ministerial standards.

Although others previously would have been stood down for smaller indiscretions, if you look at the long and sordid history of still Minister Taylor, he has, sadly, a very long history of transgressions. We know he was the subject of serious questions about his relationship with Cayman Island companies back when Mr Barnaby Joyce's water buyback scheme was on foot. I think the figure of $80 million was discussed in that session. There are also those allegations that Minister Taylor, when his family company was being investigated for illegal land clearing, phoned the environment minister to try to find a way of secretly delisting the protection for that grassland, and sussing out where the investigation was at and if it could be stopped somehow. He then pretended he was doing that on his constituents' behalf when it wasn't even in that electorate. That one's still under investigation. In fact, the Senate will be reporting on that matter tomorrow.

But now Mr Taylor has either forged figures or caused them to be forged. Someone's forged them; that's why it's being investigated. We don't know who actually forged the figures. He made the outlandish claim that the City of Sydney and the councillors and Lord Mayor somehow spent millions on travel, and he tried to say that they're therefore hypocrites because they believe in climate neutrality when, in fact, the figures are wildly inaccurate. Scandal continues to surround this minister, yet he remains a minister. The ministerial standards, which are the Prime Minister's document—they don't have legislative force, but they are meant to be standards that the Prime Minister enforces—are either simply too weak or not being enforced. Frankly, I think it's both. The ministerial standards require the highest possible standards of probity. Well, I really don't think we're seeing that here, are we? That list of scandals is most unedifying.

Another point: the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction is not doing very well at reducing emissions, or energy prices for that matter, but how does this guy have the time to check City of Sydney council records? How does he decide that that is worth his time, as a federal minister for an important issue nationally? He somehow found the time to write a letter about the Lord Mayor of Sydney, and got the figures wrong anyway—or possibly made them wrong deliberately. Doesn't he have anything better to do with his time as the minister for emissions reduction and electricity prices reduction? Perhaps that's why electricity prices have not reduced on his watch—and nor have emissions. I suggest that Minister Taylor actually do his job, and do it better than he has been, rather than write letters to local councillors. The whole scenario is entirely unedifying, not just for Minister Taylor but for this government.

What has the Prime Minister done? Rather than take action and enforce his pretty flaccid ministerial standards, he actually just phoned a friend and potentially tried to exert influence—we don't know because they won't tell us what was said during the phone call—rather than simply saying: 'Okay, Minister Taylor, enough is enough. This is four strikes. You'll have to have a bit of time on the backbench, buddy. Don't worry, we'll bring you back as soon as it blows over.' That's what you would normally expect from this government; that's what they've had to do in the past. They haven't even done that. All of this goes to show exactly why we need actual standards that aren't just at the discretion of the Prime Minister but actually apply to the Prime Minister as well and are independently enforced.

The Greens have been calling for a parliamentary code of conduct for many a year. In fact, I've got some legislation that has been referred off to inquiry. What happens in this building is in the bubble—I certainly agree with the Prime Minister on that one—but we are paid to represent the public interest, and what is happening is scandal after scandal that only serves to reinforce the low opinion held by members of the public of what we do in this place. We should be here tackling real issues like homelessness, like the climate crisis that we're in, like financial inequality. Those are the sorts of things Australians expect this parliament to be doing. Instead, because of Minister Taylor's constant transgressions and the Prime Minister's refusal to bring him to task and to ask him to stand down while this police investigation is underway, we're now having to talk about the fact that the government won't even disclose what was said during a phone call between the Prime Minister and a chief of police, a phone call about which every man and their dog has said, 'I wouldn't have made that phone call.' Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull distanced himself and said he wouldn't have made the call. It turns out the Attorney-General, who's meant to uphold the law, was in the room at the time and presumably didn't say: 'Dude, no, put the phone down. That is not an appropriate call.' Does this government have no shame? Does it not understand that the rule of law actually means that everybody has to comply with the rules? We're not seeing any enforcement of the prime ministerial standards, and they are too weak as it stands.

There have been so many excuses from Minister Taylor and others: 'Oh, well, I didn't have to disclose that corporate interest, because it's a subsidiary or a subsidiary of a subsidiary.' They are using this corporate web to deliberately not disclose their own private interests, and they are then interfering in processes that might impact on those private interests. The Greens think that's why we need an anticorruption body federally. It's been more than a year since the Prime Minister was dragged to that commitment. It's been 10 years since the Greens first successfully passed a motion saying we need a federal anticorruption body. It's been 10 years that we've been working on this. We've had bill after bill. I'm pleased that in September this year the Senate passed our Greens bill to set up an independent and strongly resourced watchdog, with teeth, that would apply to politicians. It's sitting on the Notice Paper in the House. It's going nowhere. The government keep saying they are working on their own version, but they've been saying that for more than a year. Perhaps the Attorney-General shouldn't be sitting in the room while the Prime Minister is making inappropriate phone calls; maybe he could get on with his job—like bringing forward an integrity commission that his government committed to a year ago. But maybe he should expand the scope so it applies to politicians and to ministers and to the Prime Minister. Perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation if we had a national anticorruption body. Instead we see obfuscation and delay. We see rumours of a flimsy ICAC proposal that won't even cover politicians and won't, therefore, change the bad behaviour this place has been so riddled with.

And again we see Minister Cormann saying, 'No, soz, I'm not going to comply with this OPD. Even if anything was written down, it wouldn't be in the public interest to tell you'. It is not wonder that the Australian public think less and less of this parliament every single day. It's what all the surveys show. And what is this government doing to restore confidence and trust in the integrity of our democracy? It's doing absolutely nothing. It's delaying its ICAC bill; it's protecting ministers who really should have voluntarily stood aside a long time ago; and it's allowing corporate interests, and the private interests that ministers still have, to be concealed. It's about time we saw this government subjecting itself to the rule of law, complying with its own standards, strengthening its own standards and stopping the rot of corruption. We live in hope.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few comments, along with my colleagues, on the response from the government to the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate's order—rather than a request—for the production of documents. The response from the government is galling. Here we have a homegrown scandal of their own, created by Minister Taylor himself, implicating others as he goes along through the cover-up of his behaviour and his refusal to provide information. We had the Prime Minister calling the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, while the first law officer of the land, the Attorney-General, was sitting in the room. Somehow those two gentlemen thought it appropriate to make that call and not take any notes or have any other observers. And we're meant to believe—in accordance with the scarcity of information provided by Senator Cormann today—that there are no documents of any kind related to this phone call. How convenient is that? In terms of public administration, it shows a complete lack of judgement and how sloppy the processes must be in the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister of this country called the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, who had announced that day that he had created a strike force to investigate allegations around one of the Prime Minister's own cabinet ministers. And the judgement of the Prime Minister and the first law officer of the land, the Attorney-General, was that it was not only fine to make that call but fine also to have no independent party present and no notes taken. It shows a complete lack of appropriate process and how arrogant this government is, with a 'born to rule' mentality, that proper process in relation to public administration, transparency, accountability and trust in the political process don't warrant those steps to be taken.

And not only are there no documents created for this OPD, but the final paragraph of Senator Cormann's letter goes on to say, 'And, Senate, even if there were documents created that you want to see, we wouldn't show you anyway.' It's completely unnecessary in terms of responding to this OPD, but it shows you the true colours of this government. They feel the need to go one step further, after accepting there has been no proper process and no transparency and there will be no accountability about the actions of the Prime Minister and the first law officer that day. Further to that, they're saying: 'Even if there were and we had been running some sort of proper process, we wouldn't be giving them to you anyway. In fact, if these documents did exist, which they don't'—so they're giving us the finger, really—'they would be subject to public interest immunity.'

If you have a look at what that means under the brief on the order for the production of documents, it's a concept that recognises it would be against the public interest for certain documents or information to be made public. How ridiculous is that? You've got the Prime Minister calling his friend—and that's the term he used—who's just announced that they're investigating one of this government's ministers, and it's not in the public interest for any documents or information around that to be made public. What are they hiding? Through this whole scandal with Minister Taylor, the question that I keep coming back to is: why aren't they just informing the public how the document was doctored and how it got to Minister Taylor, if it wasn't him that doctored it? Who is Minister Taylor protecting? If it wasn't him, why isn't he saying so? This building chatters from time to time, and I know there's speculation around who doctored the document, but, if it wasn't him that did it, why is Minister Taylor protecting someone? Why then is the Prime Minister protecting Minister Taylor? Why then is the first law officer of the land trying to protect everyone? Why is Senator Birmingham implicating himself in some sort of defence of Minister Taylor and his actions? Why would Senator Cormann—a man we all have dealings with in this chamber; many of us have a good working relationship with him and see him as a man of integrity—be launching such a staunch defence of Minister Taylor's actions?

There's no doubt the document was doctored; Minister Taylor has said that himself. So why can't there be some truth around what went on? Somebody knows who did it, and I can't see why the government is involving so many of its senior ministers in the cover-up. The minister has accepted the document was falsified, but, instead of dealing with that issue and instead of dealing with the misleading of the parliament and correcting the record, we've now got a prime minister who's misled the parliament and who's refusing to correct the record as well. It's often the things that happen after a scandal—or as a scandal rolls out—that actually show you the true colours of the organisation you're dealing with, and I think that's what we've seen in the last month or so as this has been rolling out.

Minister Taylor has been a drag on the government since they were re-elected. You've got the grasslands fiasco—a complete fiasco!—and improper dealings by Minister Taylor in relation to, again, an investigation into what was going on in a company that was linked to him through his family. That was back in June. We then have this own goal kicked in September. It goes into October, when Councillor Moore responds to the claim from Minister Taylor in his letter. So it's gone from late October. It's hamstrung this government, so they haven't been able to talk about anything, and nobody will clear it up. Then we make a simple request with an order for production of documents to provide some accountability and some transparency into what went on in the Prime Minister's phone call to the police commissioner, and this is the response the Senate gets. The Senate is being treated with contempt by this government, and we've seen it with other orders for production of documents, when the response is one letter or a technical compliance with the order to produce but not actually producing anything.

The Senate is a chamber that has powers, unlike the House, where debate can be shut down—as it has been shut down on the topic of Minister Taylor at every opportunity. Again, this shows the colours of this government: if they don't like what you say, you don't have a right to say it. I think the Prime Minister would like a quiet parliament. Well, you can't make the Senate quiet. You might be able to gag debates over in the House, but, over here, in a minority chamber, we have powers and processes available to us that require the government to be accountable. What we've seen today from Minister Cormann is the arrogance and the lack of integrity that we are becoming, unfortunately, very accustomed to in our dealings with this government. Not only do they have no documents; they say, 'Even if we did, Senate, we wouldn't provide them to you anyway.' This Senate needs to stand up for itself and we on this side will continue to do that. We will continue to ask the government to provide information and to be accountable and transparent to the Australian community through this. I think and I hope that the crossbench will also play an important role in that, because we cannot allow the government to treat important processes like orders to produce documents in the way that they have treated them in the Senate today. Not only are they saying, 'We don't have any documents'; they're telling the Senate to be quiet too, because, 'Even if we did have those documents, Senate, you're not getting them, because we would claim public interest immunity'. What a joke. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.