Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for reminding us that today marks six months since the federal election, and it's a timeline moment to assess how this government is responding to the mandate given to it by the Australian people. Building Australia's future includes investing in infrastructure, services and economic settings that shape the quality of life across the nation, and I will continue to push this government to deliver more for rural, regional and remote Australia so that we can build the hospitals and homes we need, secure the workforce required for essential services and ensure that the energy transition delivers lasting benefits while protecting nature and ensuring comprehensive community consultation.

Building this future also means safeguarding our democracy and the pillars of accountability and transparency—pillars that foster trust in our institutions and our elected representatives. In opposition, this government promised a new era of transparency, and I applauded the government, in its early days, in delivering the National Anti-Corruption Commission, a long-overdue reform and a cornerstone, now, of our integrity framework. But this achievement alone does not absolve the government from action on other integrity measures. One year ago, I delivered a speech evaluating the government's performance on integrity and transparency. Just last week, the Centre for Public Integrity published its integrity scorecard, and, frankly, the results really do make for very sober reading. On five of six measures, this government is failing or stalling its commitment to fairer, more transparent government. I share the centre's view:

With genuine reform and leadership, the Government can still deliver the transparent and accountable democracy Australians were promised.

I urge them to do so.

There have been wins. The establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission is commendable. It will ensure all of us—each and every one of us—are accountable for our conduct. But there are many areas in which this government is lagging on integrity and transparency. Just last week we saw this government's recalcitrance in its refusal to release the Briggs review, more than two years after we were told it would be made public. This government talked a big game on ending a culture of jobs for mates, but we're yet to see any meaningful action.

If we are to ensure Australians can keep more of what they earn and deliver more to ease cost-of-living pressures, effective spending of public money is more important than ever, yet pork-barrelling persists. The government recently released guidelines for a new $550 million program to deliver its election commitments. Though branded as merit based, the government's Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program is an invitation-only program retrofitted to deliver the government's hand-picked election commitments. In the last term of parliament, two programs disproportionally targeted marginal and target electorates.

But perhaps the greatest disappointment of the Albanese government's second term so far on this half-anniversary is its unjustified attack on the freedom-of-information system. The right to access government information is a key check and balance on the executive and Public Service. Admittedly, some areas of the FOI system do need reform, but the government is once again using it as a cover for more secrecy. Expanding cabinet exemptions, for example, directly contravenes the recommendations of the robodebt royal commission and will further obscure public knowledge of how important decisions are affecting our country and how they are made. This bill has no friends. In fact, it is desperate and dateless. It has no friends outside the walls of government. The government should drop it and go back to the drawing board.

I continue to implore the government to act on protecting whistleblowers. Little has changed in the past year to further the Prime Minister's commitment to expand whistleblower protections and the public interest test. On electoral reform, this government has little credibility. Under the guise of transparency, the government passed significant reforms that, frankly, entrench the major parties' financial advantage. Instead of recognising that more Australians than ever are voting outside of the major parties—or maybe because of this—the government negotiated a stitch-up with the opposition to make it harder for new players to get elected.

So there is much more work to be done if this government wants to leave a positive legacy on integrity. They've taken a few too many wrong turns, but there's still time to right the ship, so I encourage every member of the government to steer in a better direction on integrity and transparency.

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