Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I start by acknowledging the member for Barton and congratulating her on her election to the House. I don't doubt for one second that the spirit in which she offered her remarks was well intentioned and based on the trust that she has in this government. The problem is that that's not actually its practice. I understand when you're a member of the government, particularly when you're new and you want to feel that your government, which you have been elected to support, is trying to do the right thing. But, as always occurs with all governments, eventually its true face is revealed, and what we're seeing more and more with time is the dark face of the Albanese government as the mask slips. The seemingly well-meaning Prime Minister, who likes to have a beer at the pub—although he actually did do that when he was claiming he wasn't doing that, but that's a whole separate issue. In the lead-up to the 2022 election, I remember seeing him explicitly saying one thing in public and doing something completely different, but we'll leave that to one side.

Ever since then, what we've seen through the legislation that has been put before this parliament is the mask slipping, and we're increasingly seeing the contemptuous quiver of his lip in a 'how dare you, Australian people, question me?' as he periodically jaunts back in from trips on his Air Force jet between visiting Dan Andrews in Victoria or going overseas. He comes back from the National People's Congress and thinks, 'That would be a really good model to impose on the Parliament of Australia, where people just stand and applaud like trained eunuchs and don't ask or dare raise questions.' And this legislation around freedom of information comfortably fits within that.

Anyone who's submitted an FOI under this government or, more importantly, under other Labor governments in the country will know how much, on the surface of it, they talk about integrity and they spin the idea that they're in favour of transparency, but, in practice, they weaponise and use it at every point to try and undermine access to information. I'll give you a classic example of this. I FOI'd the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing many, many months ago asking for information about an MRI machine at Sandringham Hospital—Sandringham Hospital, of course, being in the federal electorate of Goldstein. I remember, in 2017, when we were last in government, an MRI licence was secured for the federal electorate of Goldstein. Many people said to me: 'Why didn't you get one for Sandringham Hospital? Why did you get it for Cabrini hospital in Brighton?' The answer was because Sandringham Hospital doesn't have an MRI machine. It's not much use getting an MRI licence for a hospital that doesn't have an MRI machine you can use it on. So it was with fascination that, during the lead-up to the last federal election, the former member for Goldstein was boasting to the community about how she got this magnificent MRI licence for Sandringham Hospital. I thought, 'That's really odd because, as far as I'm aware, the website alfredhealth.org.au still says it doesn't have an MRI machine. Of course, I then dutifully went to foi@health.gov.au with one of these mischievous FOIs—'How dare people submit?' I asked the basic questions: Could I have the advice that was given to the department at the time? Could you give me information reflecting what their decision-making and their pricing structure were on whether this should be passed? And what did the research and FOI documents actually show? They showed the department saying, 'Actually it's quite easy to calculate the cost of bringing forward the MRI licence for Sandringham Hospital because there's no MRI machine.' So what they engaged in was a cruel health hoax that deliberately deceived the people of Goldstein in order to prop up the former member in the hope that they would then go on and get re-elected. It was to help their own electoral fortunes and chances.

So does FOI have a place? Yes, it has a role to expose the deception and the dishonesty at the heart of this government and, of course, of any government that seeks to abuse power. The minister was specifically warned. Even worse than that is that the FOI went in many months ago and we waited and waited and waited for an answer. Do you know when they released the answer? Do you know when they finally gave out the documents? They finally gave out the documents on the Friday evening after the bureaucrats were forced to admit, before Senate estimates, everything I've just said. They weaponised and they abused freedom of information to hide information until they could hide it no longer. That is what Minister Butler does. That is what the Prime Minister does. They weaponise laws to shut down access to information for the people of Australia.

We've now got this piece of legislation, the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, and we know that the Attorney-General is trying to suffocate and silence what is left of the democracy in our country in terms of access to information. We know that she is trying to deceive the public, and they are using the most fantastical and farcical arguments to get there. The argument that is now being put forward by the Prime Minister is that we have to shut down the pathways of freedom to information for ordinary Australians because there might be things to do with national security and the cabinet. I hate to break it to you, but, if you've ever read the FOI Act, you will know that it already excludes all of the information around our national security. They say that the last resort of a scoundrel is to appeal to national security or patriotism. Well, this government is clearly full of those types of characters.

They have simply deceived the public in the hope that they can ram this through and impose their truth tax to shut down and silence information and to cap the volume of information that Australians can get. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. They haven't consulted. They haven't engaged. There are so many transparency organisations and anticorruption organisations. There's the opposition and the crossbench, who are increasingly seeing the dark face of this government. They're seeing the mask slip when the Prime Minister gets up in question time—when he occasionally answers questions rather than, with a quiver of his lip, shouting abuse back in response. They're starting to see what happens when you have a government that's let the intoxication of power go to its head. It's worse than, let's say, a few beers once you've frozen the excise.

What we know is they're shutting down transparency and democratic accountability. I gave an example of what's going on at the local hospital in the federal electorate of Goldstein. They're imposing new fees and processing caps to try and silence and limit access to journalists so they won't be able to find out information. They're trying to minimise the capacity for people to get information, like whistleblowers and vulnerable applicants, because that's what we really need right now. We need more pathways to silence whistleblowers. Why do you think that might be? Do think it might be because, at the moment, we have whistleblowers who are standing up and calling out the CFMEU and their administration established by Minister Rishworth and calling out that corruption is actually getting worse under the current government's proposal? Their solution is to shut down whistleblowers, to silence dissent and to challenge anybody who stands up and calls out corruption at the heart of this government. They do not want these voices to be heard, because they know it's not just getting worse but likely to continue to get worse under this regime.

They want to expand secrecy around cabinet advice because apparently there's this explosion of cabinet advice. It's just all around. You can go and pick it up. There are pieces of paper all around. It's all over the place. So they have to try and somehow minimise it. Cabinet advice isn't publicly available. The idea that they need to somehow constrain this further is farcical. They are using it to try and expand it so that now ministers can walk through and say, 'It went through the cabinet room. Now it's cabinet advice, so you can't access it,' to try to continue to create silence and limit the amount of available information. They're putting caps on the volume of information you're able to secure and the processing times. What a surprise. Do you think it's possible, Deputy Speaker Boyce, they might turn around and simply say, 'I think it's going to take a while for us to process this information in between my coffee break, going to the bathroom, lunch.'? It will get longer and longer and then all of a sudden they will say, 'We can't give that information; it's too long to process.' Get real.

The intention of this legislation is clear. The attempt of this government to silence and shut down public scrutiny is real. When you have a truth tax, when you have silencing and the limiting of information, and you see the example of their conduct in other arenas such as the CFMEU administration, where the minister still takes advice from somebody who self declares they are so tainted they cannot sit on the national executive of the Labor Party yet they still hold that person as an advisor on the national construction industry forum—and, funnily enough, that minister is still blocking a public inquiry through the Senate into CFMEU corruption into the regime she has established—you start to see the cartel kickback circle of life. This is the problem.

This legislation, in theory, is designed to do what the government claim, which is simply to administratively tidy up the law. In practice, it is a backdoor attack on our democracy and it needs to be called out because it will reward delay and dysfunction at every step of the way. It lacks public support. I have yet to find a single person outside this Albanese government who supports it. Nobody is coming up to me in the street and saying, 'I really support how the government is shutting down freedom of information. I think it is a wonderful thing.' Not a single person has said that; though people have said the reverse. People have said, 'I don't think it's a good idea.' Journalists, members of the opposition, members of the crossbench, anybody who has actually thought about what this government are doing in their insidious agenda have said it. It goes directly against the proposition this government came to office in, saying they would have integrity and be fulsome in providing information to the public. We all know that is complete fantasy now. It was a proposition put at the time but nobody actually believes that. I don't think they even believe it themselves, but I would not want to verbal them; they should just be ashamed by their conduct.

More importantly, what the legislation actually does is damage public trust, because around this country we have so many Australians that already have deep distrust in institutions. The one surefire way to guarantee that is to shut them down and limit access and accountability, to make it even harder for agencies to be held accountable not just from the public and journalists but from ministers themselves, certainly from parliamentary processes. If the minister and members opposite were so enthused and so enthralled by standing up for public scrutiny and accountability, the first thing they could do is start by saying that a lot of these rules simply should not apply to those people elected to public office to hold the government specifically to account, and certainly to journalists whose job it is to shine bright lights into very dark crevices. But let's face it, nobody wants to know what is going on in the dark crevices of this government.

We have increasing bureaucracy and legal complexity deliberately designed to obfuscate and make it more complicated to be able to find information, and for what purpose apart from the secrecy this government seeks to impose? There is a better way. We can conserve the existing laws. There is no national security threat despite the pontificating of the Prime Minister, who has come back from overseas and too often is trying to find justifications to shut down accountability around this parliament, the government and the operations of the Commonwealth of Australia. We can have a better way. We can have laws that work to enable access to information, that give people access to the information they need to be able to hold this government to account. We don't need to indulge the fantasies of the Albanese government and those who wilfully come into this chamber with the delusion of thinking they are doing the right thing, when in fact they are entrenching the corrupt government system they claim they are seeking to oppose.

We have choices as a nation about the type of country we want to be, and we want to be one focused on making sure there is transparency, accountability and decision-making, because it is important not just for the ministers but for the bureaucrats themselves that they understand through the systems of government there is accountability for their decision-making. Nobody should be embarrassed by the process of making decisions. It is about making sure they are properly informed, that they are properly respected and that people have input into the processes of government.

It is the right of every Australian to ask challenging and difficult questions to their government. I hate to break this to the members of the government: the people have a government; it is not the other way around. Citizens have a government; it is not the other way around. We are not your serfs. Our job is not to comply. Your job is not to control the citizens of this country.

It comes down to a simple proposition: we face choices. The choice is simple. I fundamentally believe that we should have legislation that improves this country and the governance framework that we have. That means we build a better future for children and our grandchildren and we do not hand to them a state of silence, as the Albanese government would like to achieve. We stand for a nation that is built on structures and the protection of accountability, and that means making sure we stop these types of bad laws.

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