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

Senator Pocock, I'm attending the chamber in accordance with your request. I would have been happy to have a chat. The government rejects Senator Pocock's assertion that the Prime Minister has not fully complied with the order. We take our obligations seriously, and we comply with our obligations. Orders for production of documents and FOIs are processed based on the terms of the request and the requirement on relevant legislation. As is appropriate, the government has devoted a significant amount of resources to processing the many orders for production and freedom of information requests it has received. For example, the PMO has received over 140 FOI applications that all have been processed within the statutory time period. As I said, OPDs and FOI requests are processed based on their specific terms and applicable legislation.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

I thank Minister Wong for her explanation on behalf of the Prime Minister. It is not the first time Minister Wong has had to come into this place and make explanations for the Prime Minister. I'm pretty disappointed by the explanation simply saying that it was out of scope, because my OPD asked for all records of interaction with the AFL and NRL. The PMO is trying to say that 'records of interaction' don't mean what's in the diary. 'Records of interaction' is the definition of what you put in a diary. A diary is by definition a record of interactions, so I simply do not buy it. I don't buy it, and I think that it is disrespectful to the Senate.

It's not the first time where we've seen the Senate say that you need to produce these documents, things are withheld, then we have an FOI and things are released. I'd urge the government to actually live up to some of the things that they said in opposition about the need for more transparency in government. If the Senate asks for these documents, if the Senate asks for the records of interactions with the AFL and the NRL, why does PMO think that it can withhold things and say, 'Well, you didn't ask for the Prime Minister's diary'? It makes no sense to me. And I don't think it's up to scratch.

It's no wonder that, when it does come to the release of ministerial diaries, the major parties don't want to do it. This—transparency in seeing who ministers are meeting with—should be a standard part of our democracy. It doesn't have to be in real time; it can be a few months after the fact. But this doesn't cut it.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the explanation given by Senator Wong on the request in relation to interactions and discussions that the Prime Minister may or may not have had with the big corporate sporting codes in relation to gambling. And I concur with my Senate colleague Senator Pocock: it is not good enough.

The reason why this information is not being given to the Senate and, therefore, made available to the Australian people is that the government doesn't want you, as members of the public, to know just how cosy the Prime Minister and the government have become with those who want to keep gambling ads in place—despite the fact that the majority of Australians, over and over again, whenever they are asked, say they do want a proper restriction on gambling ads. Australians say yes, they're sick of them. They're sick of gambling ads infiltrating their homes through the television. They're sick of gambling ads infiltrating their phones and their devices. They're sick of wondering, when they sit their kids down in front of the television to watch Bluey on YouTube, whether they're going to be bombarded with gambling ads. They're sick of having to explain to their children what 'odds' and 'bets' mean when they're watching their favourite football team on a Saturday afternoon.

This government promised to act on the recommendations of the Peta Murphy report to stop the harmful advertising of the harmful product of gambling, and the government continues to fail. This week we've heard explanations from the minister and from the government that they're still consulting. Yet, when we ask for the information about conversations and what form of interaction that consultation may be taking, we get told, 'Nothing to see here; we're not showing you.' In fact, what we do know about the consultations that this government has run in relation to gambling reform is that they made the people they met with, in the official consultations, sign NDAs. That's how desperate this government is at keeping all of this secret. So it doesn't matter whether we're talking about the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's staff and their diaries or whether we're talking about the official consultation process run by the minister and her department, it is secret, secret, secret. It's kept out of the view of the public. And we're being asked, as a parliament, to just accept that and say that it's okay. Well, it's not.

The Australian community deserve to know what is being planned, why the government has gone weak and when the government will be upfront about their plans to fix this insidious business model that the gambling lobby has, where they push these ads into our homes and onto our kids' phones and devices, grooming our children to be problem gamblers. If you can't stand up to the groomers in the gambling industry, who are you going to stand up to? It might have something to do with taking those hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from the gambling lobby—the people making money from grooming our kids. It's disgusting, and you want to keep it secret.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In taking note of the matter raised by Senator David Pocock, I think that it is worth noting that we are all custodians of this institution. Regarding Senate orders for the production of documents, I note that the government says there are too many, but they are nonetheless orders of the Senate that the executive government should do its best to comply with. I have to say, that was a pretty regrettable response from Minister Wong. The reality is that the journalist was able to get more information on the same matter than the parliament; that is the reality here. This is the third such case I'm aware of in this parliament where a freedom-of-information request has yielded vastly more information, over an identical piece of information, than an order for the production of documents.

It is bizarre, at a minimum, that the government would treat the Senate with such contempt, particularly noting that the government campaigned on the basis that it would show fidelity to transparency and integrity and would be transparent. It has gone out of its way to obfuscate and cover up documents which are germane to orders for the production of documents. It has been endemic across the executive government. In past sessions we have canvassed the fact that the Treasurer of the Commonwealth signed a false document where he asserted that there were commercial-in-confidence matters subject to an order for the production of documents in relation to the Cbus super fund. Helpfully, I had filed a freedom-of-information request for the same information as a citizen, and I was able to receive more information about this matter as a citizen than I could as a senator. So the government is treating this chamber like absolute dirt. Senator David Pocock is right to be aggrieved.

In the case of Dr Chalmers filing a false letter with this Senate which claimed commercial-in-confidence information for Cbus, the Information Commissioner threw it out and said that this was lobbying. The Information Commissioner said this was really 'to achieve a change in the government's policy'. Dr Chalmers has really let his colours down by doing this. As it stands, we have another OPD over a report that the Senate has sought. Dr Chalmers said to the Senate in November 2024 that the agency known as APRA had indicated that this was likely to be protected information and therefore he wasn't going to provide it. As a result, I thought, 'We'll get some advice here', and the Clerk has said that Odgers' is quite clear: there is no arrangement here for the Treasurer to cover up this information. The Clerk says, 'The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority Act does not contain provisions which would constrain the Senate's powers.' In other words, the Clerk has said that Dr Chalmers has to give this report to the Senate because—and, again, he has some form here—his leader is wrong.

The Treasurer here is a repeat offender, and it seems, noting Senator David Pocock's contribution, that the Prime Minister is party to this arrangement where the executive government wants to treat this chamber, which was elected by the Australian people, with absolute contempt. It will not comply with the orders of the Senate and therefore it is prepared to treat the Australian people with contempt. After having campaigned on integrity and transparency, the government has not met that standard. It is no wonder the Australian people are deeply disillusioned with this government.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Pocock on this motion. I myself have put in a number of motions throughout the term of this government requesting orders for the production of documents. Most recently, I wanted the business case for the $100 million that was spent on Avoca Drive. The reply was that the business case was prepared by the New South Wales government. I then asked for communications between the federal government and the state government as to how the New South Wales government justified this $100 million to be spent by the federal government, given that it was a New South Wales road, a state road, and a New South Wales responsibility. The reply I got to that was that, if they released the communication between the federal and state governments, it would damage state relations. And that, of course, is a complete load of tripe.

It's just one of the many examples that we've seen throughout the term of this government where they refuse to release documents. The whole point of government is accountability and transparency. Now, I've just started going to the whips meetings every night at seven o'clock. I have said to my colleagues who go to those meetings that I will always vote for an order for the production of documents because I just believe in that as a matter of principle. The coalition can't get too self-righteous about this, as well, because I know that they didn't release information when they were in government, and it needs to happen.

I'll give you another example. Just yesterday, I went to the community affairs committee because the minister for health refuses to release the primer that was used in the PCR test that was used to lock down 20 million people. Now, the primer that I'm asking for is just the simple combination of nucleotides that were used in that primer. That information is not unique and cannot be patented by the big pharmaceutical companies. That is Mother Nature doing its job, and I think that people are entitled to know what codons, what sequence and what length of sequence were used by big pharma to lock down 25 million people for two years. Yet again, we get more pushback from the minister for health. This time he said that it's commercial-in-confidence. Commercial-in-confidence is when you're asking for financial figures or the technology that's used in a PCR test. But the actual codons used that were in that virus are no secret. We know what the codons in the virus were. All I'm asking for is which part of the codons was used to actually justify locking people down. And, of course, yet again, the minister for health refuses to actually provide these documents.

Time and time again, I have asked the Bureau of Meteorology for the technology behind the homogenisation, and the reply to that was that actually they can't give it because there are too many iterations. I'll give you one example: there have been 400 million iterations to the maximum temperature at Marble Bar and 250 million iterations to the minimum temperature at Marble Bar, and it would be impossible to provide and impossible to audit. Of course, we've now found out that this convoluted contraption that they've come up with has blown out in costs by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yet again, I've asked the CSIRO in estimates, 'Can I please have the model used to calculate net zero.' Larry Marshall, the then head of the CSIRO, said, 'Which model?' I then said, 'What do you mean by that, Laz?' He said, 'We've got 40 different models.' I think, if we're going to go to net zero and spend billions of dollars getting there, the Australian public are entitled to know how this particular net zero figure is being calculated and why there are 40 different models. If the science is settled, why do you need 40 different models? I would have thought you'd have one model.

But, of course, it's just another example of the continual command-and-control fearmongering by both of the major parties. They'll create a catastrophe and catastrophise everything, and then, when you actually ask for evidence of why they want to catastrophise everything, they don't want to provide it. That is why we know that governments today are more interested in control than actually serving the people.

This motion by Senator Pocock has hit the nail on the head. There has been a record number of denials to orders for production of documents, and I can tell you that the Australian public are sick and tired of the secrecy within the bureaucracy in this government. I've just missed a phone call from another whistleblower. I was meant to talk to them at 1.30 today, thinking senator's statements were on tonight. I'm talking to them again at six o'clock at night. I have got whistleblowers coming out everywhere, wanting to call out the bureaucracy. Let's do it. Let's expose the corruption in government.

Question agreed to.