Page 2185 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 August 2016
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I would put on the record that I and other members of the opposition have been incredibly frustrated by this government’s obstruction to freedom of information—I know that that is the same for members of the media—and that far from being open, when you do put in an FOI request often what happens is that it gets knocked back. “We are not going to do it, there is too much,” and there is a massive bill attached if you want to have that work done or, equally, when you go through that process and you argue the case, it comes back with 90 per cent redacted. And that is not the way that we should be doing it.
I do not know whether to an extent it is a problem with the law or the spirit of the way it is being applied—probably a bit of both—but we remain open to improvement in that area. Whether we end up supporting Mr Rattenbury’s bill, whether it is amended or not, I can indicate to you the opposition, whether it is in opposition next term or in government, will be very open to working to improve freedom of information laws.
The fact is that we have reached a point that this is a government that is 15 years old and this is a government now that has members of its own party raising concerns about the way that it acts. It has members of the media raising concerns. It has experienced former bureaucrats raising concerns, and rightly so, as a result of deals that it is connected with. There are now police investigations. There are Auditor-General inquiries occurring and there are, should I say, other issues that are potentially going to come forward. We will deal with those in the appropriate manner. But if we are going to restore confidence, if we are going to make sure that people have confidence that members in this place are making decisions in the best interest of constituents there needs to be a change.
Whether it is the shabby relationship between this government and the CFMEU, an organisation under a cloud and has members who are sub-branch presidents and who have faced action in the court, whether it is the issue that this is a government propped up by money that it receives from pokie machines both through the Tradies owned by the CFMEU or through its own poker machines, whether it is the fact that both the Labor Party and the CFMEU are developers and own property in this town, or whether it is the issues that have been raised by the media around the tangled web of former Labor Party staffers and Labor Party ministers involved in many of these deals with government, there is a smell. It is not me saying that. There are many people saying that, including Michael Moore, the Canberra Times and many others.
I am disappointed that Mr Barr has not seen this as an opportunity to take some steps to restore some of the faith around the government. This is something I have been calling for now for over three years without any action from this government. To put in an amendment saying, “We will have a look it,” is entirely disingenuous.
Fundamentally if we are the party that forms government in October then certainly one of the first things that I will do is restore faith in the integrity of government. I will wash away the smell that surrounds the Labor Party and the CFMEU and many of its fellow travellers. And we will give the resources and the independence to both the public service commissioner and the Auditor-General to make sure that a light is shone. That will happen on us and I welcome that.
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