Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills is reviewing the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill. My question to the minister is this: Will the minister commit to amending or withdrawing the bill if the Senate committee finds that it undermines the public's right to know? The government must respect the findings of independent scrutiny. I urge the minister to act on the committee's recommendations.

Finally, as I have previously indicated, this bill does not have a friend in the world apart from the Public Service. And, quite frankly, I would have thought that the Public Service would have welcomed the changes that the Attorney has finally made today around anonymity.

But the amendment that the Attorney has moved today does not, in and of itself, correct a bill with all the many faults and problems that so many of my colleagues have spoken of for such a long period of time. This government is allergic to transparency. It continues day in, day out, particularly as we get closer to the Christmas break, to be jamming legislation through this place. Every Australian should be very concerned when they hear that their government is looking to create efficiencies in everyday Australians' access to information.

Democracy is a very precarious thing but it is something that should be cherished, and I think is cherished—mostly—by 27 million Australians. But the downward slide in democracy can happen very easily. In the lead-up to the '22 election, this government prided itself on making it a fundamental election principle. 'Vote for us,' they said. 'We'll restore,' they said, 'integrity to the parliament. We'll restore integrity to government.' And what we have seen, particularly over the last four to six weeks, is this government continuing to ram legislation through this place. This bill should send a shock wave through the hearts of 27 million Australians.

I have just spoken about a few of the stakeholders who have raised concerns about this bill—just a few. The media, in particular, relies heavily upon access to freedom of information, and it relies heavily on the ability to be able to access information to hold the government to account. That is their job. Whether they do it particularly well or not is of course up for debate, but what this government shouldn't be doing is nobbling the ability of the media to do its job. But that's exactly what this bill will do. You might say, 'How is it doing that?' The reality is that the media is much more than just your News Corps and large media organisations. It also involves small, independent newspapers, like the Glasshouse Country & Maleny News in my electorate. They should be able to request information from this government on important issues like funding for hospitals and childcare centres. It's vitally important that Australians across our country have the ability to ask questions of their government, who are there to serve them. The bureaucracy are not there to serve themselves; the bureaucracy is there to serve the Australian public. I urge this minister to pause this bill.

See this speech in context