Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are some things in this place that we talk about that I think resonate even more strongly with our constituents than others do, and this particular topic of transparency and accountability is one of them. It's wonderful to see some schoolchildren up there in our parliament. Welcome, people in the gallery. They're here to observe, to understand, to listen, to see how this parliament works, to understand more about our democracy and to perhaps take away more insight into what the government, who sits on that side of this place, does in setting the tone and making decisions that affect every single one of them. This amendment bill that I'm speaking to today takes away some of the fundamental principles of democracy that we all hold dear; the accessibility to having accountability for decisions that are made by this government.

In preparation for this speech I printed out and reviewed the 79 pages of this bill. Given that it is titled the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025, one would assume that transparency and accountability would be front and centre of this amending legislation. In actual fact, the word 'transparency' does not appear in this amending legislation. 'Accountability' does not appear anywhere in this legislation. It's a sad indictment on this government that they think that it's okay to hide from the Australian people, to put barriers between their decisions and the Australian people, and that's exactly what this bill does.

There's a bit of a theme to what we see from this government. For those of you who are here, you might be avid watchers of question time. Sadly, during the 47th Parliament and now the 48th Parliament, the opposition are receiving fewer questions than ever before. Just this week, in an hour and 10 minutes or so of question time, the opposition were granted only six questions. The Prime Minister and his ministers hide from the scrutiny that the Australian people deserve at every available opportunity. In question time, it's on very public display that they don't grant the opposition enough questions to genuinely hold the government to account on behalf of the people of Australia.

This amending legislation comes before the parliament less than six months after the Prime Minister and his Labor government were returned with a whopping majority. Is this what the Australian people signed up for in giving them 90-plus seats? I think not. The Australian people do not want a majority of this government in this place to be used to crush the very principles of government accountability and scrutiny, which is exactly what they are choosing to do, and at a time when Australians are struggling to pay the bills. We have seen Australians paying an average mortgage that's $1,800 more per month. We have seen electricity prices rise by 39 per cent. The ABS called it out specifically last week in their data that, in fact, in the last 12 months we have seen 23 per cent rises in power prices. Yet here we are, standing here debating a bill which is to provide cover to this government for the poor decisions that they continue to make.

I say that this is not how the government should be using their time in office. In fact, it's the very opposite. Much amending legislation is quite boring. Perhaps the schoolchildren up there will one day become lawyers and end up spending a lot of time reviewing legislation, so it's probably fair that, on page 11, item 21 makes an amendment that says, 'Omit "name of an", substitute "designation of the".' It's pretty vanilla stuff. It's what lawyers do. They write legislation, they read it, they interpret it. Sure, make that change, but the problem is that this legislation goes on to do so much more than make minor wording amendments.

I'm very proud to be here, representing my community. At all times, when I make a contribution in this place, the community that I represent and Australians are front and centre of my thoughts, and it's my job to highlight the failings of this government in what they do. I think about what the average resident of my electorate or Queensland or Australia would think about this particular piece of legislation, and I suspect that they would say that freedom of information is not a privilege; it is a right that is owed by the government to its people, the right that we all have to check, to question and to challenge. In a healthy democracy, the default position should be one of disclosure, and secrecy and cover-ups should be the rare event, not the status quo.

As I said, fundamentally, this amending legislation misses the point about transparency and accountability. Our job in this place and as an opposition is simple: we must defend the public's right to know about the government and what their plans are with this legislation to make it harder, slower and more expensive to try and seek the transparency and accountability that they fundamentally deserve. The parliament, in considering this legislation, faces one basic question: do we move from a position of openness to one of control? Australians deserve access to the reasons behind a decision, not just the press release that comes after the fact. The coalition, by its very nature, is one that doesn't enjoy a bloated bureaucracy; let me assure you of that. But modernisation and improved access should not be done in a way that will reduce people's right and ability to find out more information.

This bill—whilst completely overlooking some fundamentally important principles, in my view—has nine schedules. Schedule 1 rewrites the objects of the act. As I said earlier, minor administrative wording changes? Fantastic. Fundamentally changing the objective of the act that provides public access to information? It elevates the proper functioning of government over public access, completely flipping the freedom-of-information presumption.

Schedule 2, as my friend the member for Casey referred to in his contribution, is of particular concern. I think this is where some of the public commentary from a number of interested bodies, groups and representative bodies has come from. I think it's where much of the concern from our crossbench colleagues has come from. That is that protections for whistleblowers, journalists, advocates and citizens who have a genuine fear of reprisal will now have their protections lost, because they can no longer maintain their anonymity when they make these requests. That is extremely concerning, because quite often the types of people who are making these inquiries are the ones who are most vulnerable to having their identity shown. It is such a critical part of our democracy that we have proper third-party scrutiny—from whistleblowers, from the media—and I fear that this will discourage that scrutiny from occurring.

Schedule 3 is probably an example of how this could go very wrong. A 40-hour processing cap is now being proposed. That means that agencies can stop when things get a bit too hard, no matter the value, the importance of the issue: 'No, sorry: tools down; we've gone past the allocated time.' It's really not good enough. I mentioned that one of the fundamental problems we have with this legislation is the delay that will occur. We know that schedule 4 blows out the time frames, from 30 calendar days to 30 working days. We know that this system is already prone to delays. This won't help with efficiency or transparency; it will make things worse.

But possibly the most concerning aspect is the application and review fees—what we on this side of the House have described as a truth tax. Again, the action of this government, through this legislation, is not one of allowing the public to shine a light on its decisions; it's one of putting roadblocks in the way. That example of putting a financial disincentive in the system for people who will probably struggle to meet those fees—when all they're trying to do is hold their government to account—is extremely concerning.

Again, sadly, we have only a relatively short period of time to make a contribution in this place—and believe me, I could go on for a bit longer, and I would have loved to. But, in summing up, I think it's quite clear that what this government proposes to do, using the power it has in its large majority, in one of its first acts of this parliament, is shameful and will no longer provide the Australian people with the transparency and accountability they deserve.

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