Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a document relating to an order for the production of documents concerning the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Indonesia.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to take note of the document. I'm thankful for the collaboration around the chamber to facilitate—

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Transparent'; 'cooperative'!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're words that I'm actually going to mention, Minister: 'transparency' and 'accountability', and how quickly the Labor government has been unmasked for their mockery of transparency and accountability, particularly when it comes to their response to foot-and-mouth disease. First, last week they tried to send an examination of their response to foot-and-mouth disease—that was backed by the Greens, obviously, as to varroa mite, but by us as to foot-and-mouth disease—to a committee that was actually controlled by them. And this week there's a response to an order for the production of documents lodged. The questions were asked of the Prime Minister and his department and office. They were: 'We want to know when you requested advice and when you were alerted to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia.' We also requested information around the cooperation with state governments from the PMO and the department in response to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia.

You wouldn't think that, on a matter of public importance and of public commentary such as this, the Prime Minister, his office and his department would have any issue. Minister Watt—such a fabulous new minister—rang us straight away. Our department secretaries met. I was fully briefed. I requested a brief. I wanted to understand how his trip to Indo went, who he's met and who he hasn't. But instead of providing the Senate, the parliament, the Australian public and our livestock industries with answers to very simple questions, tabled here tonight in the Senate is the government claiming a public interest immunity claim over those very, very simple questions, hiding what they knew and when they knew about the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Bali and its impact on our communities, particularly in rural and regional Australia, and on our trading status as a nation more broadly. Is it to protect the minister, whose flatfooted response on this has been well canvassed in this place over the last two weeks? Is it to protect somebody else?

On what grounds is a government failing to answer the basic questions that any minister, let alone the Prime Minister and his office, should be asking with such an issue unfolding on our shores and across the way in Indonesia? When did you know? What did you know? What did you ask for? Heaven help us, if you can't stop it at the border. As I have said repeatedly, we all want you to be successful on this. We want you to stop foot-and-mouth disease, lumpy skin disease and other biosecurity risks from reaching our shores, but heaven help us if our borders are breached. What are you doing with our state and territory governments to ensure we cauterise that? There should be no secret about that.

This was a topic discussed at the agriculture ministers' meeting. There shouldn't be any issues around this. Minister Watt's team should have been briefing the Prime Minister on the outcome of that MinCo, or, at the very least, at a departmental official level if it wasn't minister to Prime Minister. What do they have to hide? What don't they want the Australian Senate to know? What don't they want our peak industry bodies to know about their response and who knew what when? This is from a Prime Minister who's made a lot of noise about a different kind of politics in this place, of transparency, of accountability. Well, in this chamber, we take these things seriously.

I thank senators around the chamber for assisting in having this conversation tonight and getting this document into the public sphere. This is a government seeking to cover up, literally two minutes before Senate adjournment—in the only place in the Australian public that provides the type of oversight and accountability that we need to ensure executive government is held accountable and held up to the light so that Australians can be aware of what executive government is doing—on an issue as serious as this, with the fumbles and missteps that we've seen from the minister. We've seen the minister want to run out the Defence Force today. He was dismissive of foot mats three weeks ago, but we'll get the Defence Force on the case today. You know what—it is an issue. You are taking it seriously. The people aren't being hysterical, but they're concerned with this government's response. Senators have asked the question around this chamber for two weeks: What are you doing; update us? What has been tabled from the Prime Minister's office today by the minister is a shame. We will pursue this further, and we will ask ministers to attend the chamber and explain when we come back here. It is unacceptable. Australians expected better. They took him at this word when he said 'transparency' and 'accountability'. In the first sitting week, he's failed to provide that at every single hurdle. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted.