Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to order, I call on Minister Wong to provide an explanation.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government notes Senator Davey's continued interest in all things water and the Murray-Darling Basin. Obviously, she has had a long history in this area. The reality is that Senator Davey's requests have been so broad that, for the officials in our federal agencies and departments, they initially turned up as many as one million documents in scope. As previously explained to the Senate, the estimated time for a single person to review documents for just one of Senator Davey's requests would be about 8½ years. For the three we are discussing today, there are more than 500 pages of material. I note that, in response to one of Senator Davey's previous requests, we provided 170 pages of documents. I can assure Senator Davey that Minister Plibersek has sought to respond in as timely a manner as possible and can confirm that documents relating to orders for the production of documents Nos 455 and 457 have been provided for tabling today. Documents relating to order No. 456 will be tabled in due course.

I say to Senator Davey, to Senator Fawcett, as a senior senator, and to Senator Duniam, as a frontbencher, in a former party of government, that I would hope that there would be some responsibility taken in the scope of documents sought. That was a discussion that was regularly had when I was Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—to recognise that a scope of documents that extends too widely is often unnecessary. We are keen and willing to provide transparency, but the senator will know there are limits to public resources. It would be useful if senior frontbenchers, as part of a former party of government, could be aware of this.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank and appreciate Senator Wong for attending and giving that explanation. However, it is not satisfactory. One of the most obvious changes since the Albanese government came to power 18 months ago is how far we have come from having an open, transparent and accountable government. We have seen it in the way this government has gone about ignoring OPDs, not just from me but from others in the chamber. The amount of times that we have senators rise to complain about the failure to comply with an order for the production of documents is numerous. We have seen it in the way this government has gone about ignoring those on the front line, whether it be irrigation communities, pharmacists, Western Australian farmers in the banning of live exports and motor dealers in their rushed and hurried and now backflipped fuel efficiency standards. We see the absolute contempt this government has for this chamber.

We need to look no further than the minister for water, whose refusal to engage with farming organisations and their communities in the Murray-Darling Basin is highlighted by her Twitter feed, which shows she has only been in the basin a handful of times. Although, to the credit of the minister for the environment, who is in charge of recycling, she is very adept at recycling photos on that Twitter feed! She keeps replaying: 'Look at me. I flew over the basin. Here's me poignantly looking out the window of my aircraft.' She's recycled that a few times. The lack of time she has actually spent on the ground has well and truly been noted. The minister for water's lack of interest in engaging with basin communities is now being mimicked by her own department, who should hang their heads in shame. To claim a webinar and a web survey is extensive consultation is an absolute slap in the face for communities, who, while being full of consultation fatigue, will not walk away from the table when it comes to their livelihoods and their wellbeing. I guess the department thinks that its current propaganda campaign of lies that is currently playing on television—

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Davey, withdraw.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, I withdraw. Their current campaign of television advertisements is tantamount to a public education campaign that couldn't be further from the truth.

To put in context the volume of water that the government is planning to buy back: it is more than all the water left for irrigation in South Australia, Sunraysia and the Victorian GMID combined. If the water were to be bought out of these regions, their economies would be wiped out and Australians would be faced with massive increases in the cost of food. That is why I am so interested and that is why we have asked for these documents.

The failure of the minister to release any information on how the government's water policies and legislation will impact these communities, how they came to some of the figures or provide any information about the cost of the government's policy is deplorable. The Senate inquiry into the water amendment bill was a farce, with the department tasked with implementing the bill refusing to say which communities will be at the forefront of providing the 450 gigalitres of additional water, what the environmental purposes of that water will be, how much recovering that water will cost and what the impact will be on taxpayers and communities into the future.

We hope that the government has actually done the work to have that information, but we don't know. This is not the first rodeo when it comes for the Minister for the Environment and Water ignoring the wishes of the Senate. The failure to comply with the Senate and produce the documents, as requested by these OPDs, is just a repeat of past efforts. Last year we had the absurd situation where the government deliberately and repeatedly withheld documents from the Senate through Senate motions 318 and 319. Then the government couldn't even get their story straight as to why it couldn't comply. At first they said it was because there were over 1.8 million documents. That was revised and then it was claimed there were only 850,000 documents.

It begs the question as to why the 459 staff at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the staff in the department have been so busy producing what could be about 1.5 documents per hour per staff member on this topic alone since the Albanese government came to power. I mean, really, I wish. That would be very efficient if that's how much they were producing or, you could say, non-efficient because what else are they doing? They're meant to be modelling, conducting reviews and providing fair and frank advice.

The final insult was that, of the 1.8 million claimed documents, they only produced 37. That is why we had the follow-up OPDs—nos. 455, 456 and 457. I acknowledge that 455 and 456 have only been tabled today. They were due yesterday and I'm now told they have been tabled today. There has not been enough time for me to go through them. We are still waiting on 457 as a result of the minister's failure again to comply with Senate orders. We are again seeing the complete incompetence of this government and the complete disregard of this government towards this chamber.

I don't want to see any senior bureaucrats bullied or reduced to tears, but I would respectfully ask that the water bureaucrats improve their productivity and not take over two months to pull together a handful of emails and documents. And if it's more than a handful, then you have to ask why. That is why, on our side, we look at efficiency dividends.

As for the minister, her desire for secrecy and her lack of transparency is now commonplace among this government. We know this is the government of nondisclosure agreements and likes to do consultations behind closed doors with the heavy handedness of people who breach the confidence, which is not the open and transparent government that we were promised prior to the election.

It is time the Minister for the Environment and Water directed her department to step away from the keyboard, release the information the Senate had requested and then get out into the communities to do proper consultation on the implementation of the remainder of the Basin Plan, which is what communities are crying out for. We cannot allow this government to continue to ignore the wishes of communities or the wishes of the Senate.

Question agreed to.