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

Under standing order 74(5)(a), I seek an explanation from the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Birmingham, as to why 2020-21 additional estimates questions on notice Nos 1, 3, 5, 6, 501, and 519 to 531 inclusive, placed on the Notice Paper through the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee—in the PM&C portfolio—remain unanswered.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

NGHAM (—) (): I thank Senator Gallagher for her question. As I've observed a few times in the life of this parliament, over the last year there've been not dozens, not hundreds, not thousands but tens of thousands of questions that have filtered through the parliamentary proceedings of this chamber, the other chamber, estimates committees and different select and standing committees that the government has received and, overwhelmingly, worked through responses to. I acknowledge that, with what is a flow of not just more questions than were received in the last parliament but, as I understand it, more questions than were received in the previous couple of parliaments combined, there are challenges in working through all of them. Some questions come with additional sensitivities—including, in some cases, legal sensitivities—to be worked through, and sometimes that adds time to the responses there. Whilst I am sure, as is relatively predictable in these debates, a raft of criticisms about the timeliness of responses to questions and so on will follow, I would note and contend that, in terms of the government's responsiveness to the sheer volume of questions and accountability in responding to such a large number of questions, we've demonstrated a very strong and significant effort in our accountability through the term of this parliament. We'll of course continue to make best endeavours in relation to the many questions that we continue to receive on a regular basis.

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

Under standing order 74(5)(b), I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation from the minister.

The minister is absolutely right that there will be criticism of the government's failure to answer these questions. These are important questions. It seems that the defence from the Minister for Finance is the same defence that he used in December when I followed up the failure to answer these questions. It is essentially that a lot of questions have been asked and that's why a lot of questions remain unanswered. That is essentially the government's defence. On this of all days, when Ms Brittany Higgins has addressed the nation again, has spoken about her experience here, these questions relate to that. They date back to that. They are questions I asked that are now 278 days overdue.

It's not like I've been harassing the government to answer these questions. It was expected that they would be answered by, I think, 7 May 2021. That was the due date. They're now 278 days overdue. We have had two estimates rounds in the intervening period. I wrote to the Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet on 13 October last year asking where the answers to these questions were and, indeed, giving him the opportunity to say whether there were specific reasons why these questions couldn't be answered—if that is an additional defence by the government. Secretary Gaetjens hasn't even bothered to answer. Who would have thought that the head of the Prime Minister's department, the central agency, would refuse to even acknowledge, let alone reply to, a polite letter asking where the answers to these questions might be? But that's the level of accountability and transparency that exists in this government. I would argue it's the lowest level of accountability and transparency. They may have answered questions and they may have been asked lots of questions, but if they were a little more open and transparent, if they provided a little bit more information and didn't fight and if they didn't withhold so much information, maybe there would be fewer questions asked. Maybe if they answered questions and didn't use the opportunity to answer as merely a way to fob people off—I have so many questions where the answers provided by this government don't even bother to answer the question. If you ask, 'Can you provide A?' the answer will be: 'Here's an orange.' That is the quality that we get, and that is the disrespect that is shown to this Senate.

When I look back, these are the questions that were asked. I didn't get the opportunity to go to the Press Club today, for which I'm deeply sorry. I would have liked to have been there. I caught a little bit on the TV, and I heard Ms Higgins say that she was still confronted by the fact that—and it's linked to the text message that we all know exists, where the Deputy Prime Minister messaged Ms Higgins, through a third party, basically to say that he thought the Prime Minister was a liar and a hypocrite, and she alluded to that being about his state of knowledge of what had happened to her and how that had been brushed over in the hoo-ha over the text message. The substance of what was being not acknowledged was that the Deputy Prime Minister seems to be agreeing that the Prime Minister knew more than he was letting on. My questions, which are now 278 days overdue, go to that point.

Do you remember the Gaetjens inquiry that got started up when the Prime Minister couldn't go and ask his staff who knew what and when? He had to create a specific inquiry. Then, after the heat moved on, do you remember that that inquiry just got suspended and then nobody talked about it anymore? Nobody's heard anything back from that. I had questions around what the Prime Minister knew about Brittany Higgins's alleged rape in this building and when. I had questions about the relocation of Ms Higgins to a different office after her disclosure. I had questions about the Gaetjens inquiry into who knew what and when in the Prime Minister's office—whether, for example, Mr Gaetjens could tell us how many interviews he's done and how they were conducted. I had questions about media inquiries leading up to the breaking of Ms Higgins's story, about who was involved with handling them and what they were told. I had questions about whether or not the Prime Minister's staff backgrounded journalists against Ms Higgins's partner. I had questions about the contact between the Prime Minister's principal private secretary and Ms Higgins following the airing of the Four Corners 'Inside the Canberra bubble' story, and there were also questions about correspondence with the Federal Police commissioner, contact between Minister Dutton and the Prime Minister's office, the departure of the alleged perpetrator and slurs made by Minister Reynolds about Ms Higgins.

I can see why the government doesn't want to answer these questions—I get that—but to just not provide any answer or any explanation is just not acceptable. It treats the Senate with contempt, it makes a mockery of the conventions of this place and the powers of the Senate to hold governments to account and to scrutinise the workings of government, and there is no consequence for this. It's easier for the government to not answer at all. It's easier for Secretary Gaetjens to ignore a letter from a senator pursuing his department about their failure to answer questions asked at estimates about a year ago now. It is easier and more beneficial to the government to act in this way than it is to answer the questions. That's the sorry state of how this government treats this chamber. The minister says there are plenty of avenues available for accountability and transparency. Yes, but that does require the government to play their part, which is to provide information or, if they refuse to answer, to provide an explanation.

The issues that are raised in my questions go straight to the fundamentals of the standard of this government and the standard that the Prime Minister sets in leading it, because I presume he's okay with these questions not being answered. I presume Secretary Gaetjens isn't going to get a call from the PMO today saying: 'I've just been listening into the chamber that deals with accountability and transparency, and they're saying that we haven't answered something for nearly a year now. You'd better get onto that.' I doubt that's going to happen. This is the culture of this government: to hide things, to sweep things under the carpet, to delay, to distract, to pretend and, at times, to not tell the truth. That's the reality. We've all been learning that over the past few months. The Prime Minister's closest colleagues and world leaders have belled the cat and told us all what he's really like, and here is just another example of it.

I get that governments are busy; I completely accept that. I accept they have a lot on their plate at times. At the moment they've got more than they probably need, much of it self-inflicted, but that doesn't take away the responsibility a government has to protect and uphold the conventions of the parliament. That is what has been let go here. The Senate hasn't really shown its capability or capacity to stand up and push back against that. I think that's deeply regrettable, but that's a subject for another day.

These questions are important. They're important for us to understand what happened in this place. We're all talking about how we want to make this place a better place. In fact, yesterday the Prime Minister said:

I want this building to be a place where young Australians and young women in particular can follow their dreams and can live out their beliefs and not have them crushed by brutality and the misuse of power.

That's the quote from yesterday. Part of living up to that, surely, is to fess up to what happened in this building when the alleged rape of Ms Higgins occurred, and the period after that and this time last year when the government was on the back foot trying to deal with the fallout of Ms Higgins going public. That is what these questions are about—these 18 questions that, day after day, week after week, month after month, and soon to be a year, the government ignores and fails to answer.

As I said, we understand completely why it's the government's preference to do that, but it is disrespectful to Ms Higgins, and it flies in the face of the work that we're all trying to do around the Jenkins inquiry. What it says is that it's easier not to answer, it's easier not to front up to what happened and it's easier not to be honest about who knew what when and about what was done or whether nothing was done. Ms Higgins certainly feels that, following her disclosures to Minister Reynolds and others, she was treated poorly. The government has the opportunity to answer these questions and put up their side of the story.

Today, as the Minister for Finance stood up to give his explanation—and I know Minister Birmingham; he's a fundamentally decent person—there was a part of me that thought it shouldn't be you, Minister Birmingham, doing this; it should be the Prime Minister answering for this. But it's insincere and disrespectful to say, 'Well, there are a lot of questions and therefore we've answered some and not others,' and that for us to presume that the 18 questions asked about Ms Higgins, her experience here and what happened here at the heart of the government can just be ignored—hopefully, for the duration of this term and then they'll lapse. That's the sorry state that we're in.

The government has failed to provide an adequate explanation. I hope that Secretary Gaetjens is listening. Perhaps he could be bothered, considering the big bucks that are going on over there in PM&C, to actually respond to my letter of October and explain why those questions aren't being answered. Perhaps he has a resource issue—I don't know. He could tell me. Or, if the questions are going to be answered he could answer them prior to PM&C appearing at estimates next Monday, where we will be pursuing this matter. I think that, at a minimum, Secretary Gaetjens could be bothered doing that. It would be appreciated, and any push that Minister Birmingham could provide to that department to do the job that they are resourced to do would be appreciated as well.

But this is a really sorry state, I have to say: we stand here, using the precious time of the Senate to explain why questions that were asked 258 days ago still need to be followed up. This place should be afforded more decency and respect by the government.

Question agreed to.