Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Merely a couple of days ago I was in this chamber trying to get information on an incredibly sensitive topic. I was trying to get clarification. What happened is that we didn't get that clarification. By reason of that, a whole heap of innuendo and presumption—vexed and invective—became part of it. It was a highly sensitive topic. It was whether a piece of legislation from this place went beyond the initial remit—what it intended to do. It was Priya's Bill to look after people who have had a stillbirth or traumatic circumstances where their child has died. Did it actually go to a place of involving also late-term abortions? The reason those questions are asked in the chamber is because we can't get answers. We'd never proceed to a place like here if we could actually get the answer. But we can't.

What we have to deal with is the juxtaposition of people with completely different views all contacting our offices. The reason FOI is so important is that we need to be able to get to the bottom of issues on behalf of the Australian people when there's a deliberate evasiveness of governments—whether it's us or them—not providing that information. They don't provide that information, because it protects a purpose that is unbeknownst to us but obviously is there. FOIs have a whole range of nuisances, but they are essential. We've heard about issues that are vexatious, frivolous, harassing or competitive. I get all that. But sometimes the price of us having a transparent democracy is dealing with those impediments or at least going to the process of a proper Senate inquiry, so we can facilitate a better outcome than one that is foisted on us here at the moment.

When governments become too powerful, they immediately start to cover their tracks. This is a sign of a government that is becoming too powerful and managing to act basically without question. If you want to see the tenor or authenticity of a government that is not scared of the truth, you'll never get a better place than question time, where, in answer to an obvious question, we get the most classic example of obfuscation, belittling and theatre but never an answer. When people see that on television and say: 'That is the approach of government to a question that has been asked and that, whether you like it or not, I had the right to watch on question time. And they never answered it.' And then you have an earnest view of a government that says, 'Look, we've also got to go into FOI laws, because we're well meaning, and we'd never do anything wrong.' Then, of course, people say: 'But I watch you every day and you don't answer questions. Why do you make it harder for us?' Journalists are the fourth estate. A democracy does not work without the fourth estate. Knowing one journalist very well—my wife—they rely on FOIs. They do so because their job is to convey to the wider community the truth and the realities of what is happening in this building.

Now, once you get rid of FOIs, you shut down the capacity for the Australian people to graze on the truth. Then they have to graze on suspicions, they have to graze on innuendo and they have to graze on rumour, because they cannot get to the truth. It was Pulitzer who said:

There is not a crime, there is not a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.

The great thing about democracies which differentiates us from socialist states and communist states—North Korea, Russia, China, Vietnam; take your pick—is that we believe in the transparency of the actions of the government. They are beholden. Our judgement on them is by us getting a free flow of information back for the assessment of their character and their efficacy, and that's on the range of all issues. What we're seeing here is a corralling: 'You'll get information for that, but you won't get it for this, because we've deemed that you shouldn't get access to that information.' That is a very dangerous thing to do.

I want to take you to an area which is very close to my heart. This is so evident. There are things called capacity investment schemes. They are, apparently, secret agreements where proponents—domestic billionaires and foreign companies, such as PETROS and BP—get paid a secret amount by the government to build an intermittent power precinct, which I call 'swindle factories'. We hear that there is a return of up to 18 per cent. That's a lot of money. So they build a billion-dollar swindle factory. They get an equivalent return of about 18 per cent. That is $180 million a year, and here's the clicker: they don't have to produce an electron; it's underwritten. Ninety per cent of the returns are underwritten by the taxpayer.

Now, I really want to get to the bottom of this. This is the taxpayers' money and the pensioners' pain. But you can't get it, because it's hidden. It's a secret. So you go to the budget papers, thinking that you'd have to find it there because that is an authentic demonstration of how the taxpayers' money is being spent. But when you go to budget papers it's NFP, not for publication. In the meantime, you're thinking that this sounds like a rort. It sounds like a swindle or a massive rort—people can get this massive return if they just invest the most expensive capital they can possibly get their hands on in every square inch of land that's eligible. And that is exactly what is happening.

So that's happening now, and we're going to put even further restrictions on it. If the government was straightforward and transparent and had nothing to worry about, when we ask questions like, 'Can you please tell us how these capacity investment schemes work? Just give us the top 10 in returns. You can take the names out, but just give us a bit of an understanding about where the taxpayers' money's going.' But you won't get it.

And there's other information. There's information that's come out today. We're going to get three hours of free power in the middle of the day. Where did this come from? Who dreamt this up? Where did the modelling for this come from? There's no trick to this, is there? Is it the case that, if you're really wealthy and you can store it in a battery in the middle of the day, you'll get if for free, but if you're really poor and you have to come home at night to cook your dinner and maybe put an air conditioner on, you are going to pay an awful lot of money? One of the things they talked about was that it will help you charge your electric car. Well, guess who owns electric cars? Wealthy people own electric cars. Poor people own second-hand internal combustion engine cars.

We have a right to know where you got this information from. There is yet another thing. I was just listening to Matt Kean. When you can't get the truth, people can get away with anything. Matt Kean was on television just then. He said the majority of the global GDP is heading towards net zero. That is not the truth; that is something that starts with L and rhymes with stye—like pigsty. It's not the truth. I know that because I researched it. I know that China doesn't even have to think about it until 2030. Neither does India. The United States of America is out, and other countries aren't in. But because he comes from a position of authority and he's on television, people say, 'Well, it must be the truth.' It's the job of the fourth estate to go: 'Hang on; I don't think that is the truth. I will go and investigate it. Investigative journalism is very important. I will go and investigate that, and I will convey back to the Australian people where the truth lies.' Rather than convey where the truth lies, this has lying imitating truth. That is not what should be happening.

This bill should be stopped. At the very least, since you're honourable, truthful people, you should refer it to a joint committee so that you could bring forward what are probably very valid issues that you need to deal with, such as repetition, vexatiousness, harassment, 'swamping'—I understand that. Come forward so that the whole of Australia can see that there is a bipartisan or multifaceted approach to examination of this issue that is absolutely fundamental to where a democracy goes, and then they would believe that there was more truth and veracity in what would be put forward in a bill subsequent to that report from that committee.

But we have a partisan approach to a fundamental concept of democracy that is being put forward by a government which, God bless them, have massive numbers. They are now exercising those numbers so as to entrench their capacity to stay in government. They know that if they can stop you finding out the facts, then you cannot find the fault. And if you cannot fault the fault, your default position, when you vote, is, 'They must be going okay because I haven't heard anything else.' That's a step—a big step—away from how a democracy is supposed to work.

The previous speaker, the member for Menzies, mentioned how it was the same as when Hawke was there. Just because it's the same, doesn't mean it's wrong. It probably means it's been working. With the capacity for the administration of these requests, and rather than the IQ going into how you just don't do them anymore, you could be looking at the things that are available to you, such as AI, and saying: 'How can we be more efficacious? How can we make these things happen quicker? If they request that, why don't we just get the information out to them?' Create a portal, with the premise of AI, and they can just get the information. If you've got nothing to fear about the truth then you should have nothing to fear about creating a mechanism that gives you the information immediately.

Now we have this payment system—democracy for sale. And we've seen actual examples of this, where people are trying to deal with the intermittent power precincts, trying to get information, and having to pay hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars for basic information about the circumstances of what has happened to them in their community. Then they're being given email links, and getting documents which are totally redacted: 'Dear redaction, redaction, redaction, redaction, redaction, redaction, redaction, Yours sincerely, redaction.' That's like—I don't know. Kampuchea? I don't know what that is. That's a complete defrauding of the democratic process.

People should be really concerned about the path this heading down. You might say it's innocuous at this point of time, but be careful, really careful, of going down this path of removing people's access to knowing things about their nation. That's exactly what happens in the end. You are removing the capacity to know about your nation and, therefore, leaving, untethered, the capacity for a government, which is very powerful in numbers, to do as it wishes—and the wishes of a government may be completely at odds with the wishes that are best for your nation.

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