Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the Leader of the House's remarks about the calendar; I thank him for that. We'll celebrate the Burke birthday sitting tonight; I look forward to that! I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent all remaining proceedings on the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 taking place in this Chamber.

The opposition has looked carefully at what the government is attempting to do here. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Geelong Treaty Implementation) Bill 2025 should go to the Federation Chamber, but it was never intended to have matters of supreme importance to this parliament, like freedom of information—the primary governing legislation that protects citizens' rights against this government—dealt with in the Federation Chamber. We are moving today to stop this Labor government sending what is an important bill to the media and to the public—it was a commitment of the Prime Minister's at several elections that the government would have increased transparency and integrity in their legislation—off to the Federation Chamber. We do need to debate it here.

We've canvassed widely across the crossbench and the parliament, and there is extreme concern for the government's agenda in relation to freedom of information bills. Sending it to the Federation Chamber sends a signal that this parliament is not taking this primary piece of legislation as seriously as it ought to in relation to what is a critical matter to its citizenry. This government came to office promising increased transparency and increases to the protections of citizens against government, and we do need to suspend the Standing Orders so we can get this bill back to the House. That's why we didn't oppose the Leader of the House's motion—because he had two bills attached to it. The customs bill can go there—that's a simple matter for the House. No-one in this House would suggest that the freedom of information changes the government is proposing is a simple bill or an unimportant bill. Let the government come forward today and say this matter isn't important enough to be debated in the primary chamber of our country's parliament, the House of Representatives.

We have moved with great passion to make sure that this is debated here. It should be in the full light of scrutiny, in the daylight that the Prime Minister has called for repeatedly on many occasions of the media, before every single member here, and before the public who can be here to witness this in the galleries, and who are here today in many numbers to see us speak to the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill and to access their rights against government. There are a lot of people here; I want to note that.

In the 47th Parliament, amendments in 201 bills about this issue—or 44 per cent of all bills presented to the House—were referred to the Federation Chamber, sometimes with objections from the opposition. The government is regularly sending matters to the Federation Chamber that probably shouldn't be going there, so we will object where that's possible. This is the first time we have objected in this parliament. I want a government minister to come forward and say 'Freedom of information is a matter that should be shunted to a second chamber, because it isn't controversial.' I can assure the government and the Prime Minister that their changes to freedom of information are highly controversial and deserve a serious examination by this parliament.

We know what the government are trying to do here; they are trying to restrict freedom of information for citizens. They are trying to charge people as a way of limiting access to freedom of information requests   —the foundation of our democratic system. It's not just my view; it's a view of the Prime Minister's. It's his view, and he can come here and tell us why he is allowing his Leader of the House to move this to the Federation Chamber when he has insisted that Australia needs increased transparency from its government. I look forward to that contribution.

In the perspective that I have just raised, the Federation Chamber has become a legislative clearinghouse, and that is bad for democracy and bad for transparency on a bill that is so important to democracy and to transparency. The opposition and many of the crossbench cannot accept that in relation to a bill like this. This is a reasonable argument, and I know members sitting opposite understand that. I know that they like to have views exchanged between us about this. Let every single member of the government come forward with passion to say, 'We are restricting access to freedom of information under our changes,' let them argue why it's better for the executive and their own government to have less scrutiny over them.

I can tell you, having been in the executive of a government, freedom of information provides a great discipline to ministers. It's good for ministers, it's good for their office and their staff, it's good for their departments. It means citizens have fundamental rights to get information when they need it. It has led to so many things in so many governments, I can't list them all here today. I can only say to this House that the process—the sacred process in our democracy—whereby citizens should have access to the executive to say, 'We know something has gone on, we have a right to access it,' that exchange between citizen and executive government is an important fundamental. That's why this bill should not be sent to the Federation Chamber and that's why this suspension is saying, 'We must debate this here.' Let the citizenry witness; let the kids who come here to say 'democracy is fantastic' come and see the exchange of ideas. We will advocate as a coalition for greater scrutiny and transparency over the executive of government. Let government members come forward and say, 'We don't want that, we want more restricted access, we want limitations on the access regime that people will have under freedom of information.' Let them say that this should be sent to a secondary chamber where the debate won't so fulsome, where it won't be scrutinised and where it won't be in transparency. It's not lost on anyone listening to this debate, or anyone who's concerned about the freedom of information. I can tell you the entire media gallery is concerned about their access under this. It doesn't matter what their political persuasion, their background or their length of time in the gallery, the gallery—if they had a vote in the gallery—would say: 'This is limiting our access to information, and we oppose this bill.' That would be it, if they had a vote. They're the extra chamber. But they should be here to witness it. They can't all fit in the Federation Chamber. There's another important argument. They want to be here. They didn't know this was on the agenda. I'm sure we're going to tell them very shortly and say: 'Get in here and help us defeat this government on freedom of information.' And we know they're going to turn up in numbers, en masse. So that's another reason why we need to have this debate in this House, in the full glare of the media.

I welcome it, because there are not many times where we can all be in alignment. But the crossbench, I know, have concerns about this. The media have grave concerns about it. Individual transparency and freedom organisations have already raised that this is a massive overreach from the government. It just got a massive majority, but this wasn't on the platform—there was no mandate to reduce transparency or to reduce integrity. In fact, the Prime Minister promised the exact opposite from his government. So this is not the mandate the Australian people gave the government—to restrict freedom of information and to take a step backwards in relation to transparency. They have said, clearly, that they believed the Prime Minister when he said: 'We need the full light of day over government operations. We need the full light of day and scrutiny. Let the sunshine in.'

Well, let the sunshine in. We can't charge people to let the sunshine in; that's just not going to work. In fact, we know what that means—a regime to increase the cost means, effectively, that people won't be able to afford access to freedom of information.

You can see, just from my own contribution, how important this matter is. We can't let this go to the Federation Chamber. I know the Leader of the House is considering it. He's weighing up the matter very carefully. I think, on the customs amendment, we agreed—that was something that could go to Federation Chamber. The customs amendment is a straightforward matter for the government. But on freedom of information—not for us, as an opposition, not for the member for Hume, not for the member for Lindsay, but for each individual citizen who has come to the gallery today to access information from their own government, their rights will be restricted under this proposed bill from the government. So we want to stand up for them today. We want to stand up for our friends in the media, who also deserve access.

Frankly speaking, on the serious point here, all governments need this discipline. This will weaken the quality of your government. So I say to any of the backbenchers that are wavering—I can see their faces, frowning in concern at what I'm saying—your executive will be weaker. Ironically, that may help you get to the front! I'm just saying: you want to run a good government; I'm sure you do—and I'm sure every member here wants to run a good government—but your executive will be weaker; your discipline will be less.

More importantly, in an era of big government—with more public servants than ever and bigger and more bloated bureaucracies—citizens need to access the information they need. They need rights against their own government. And the freedom of information regimes are fundamental rights. They belong in the hands of our citizenry.

We oppose the government sending this to a secondary chamber. This is not a clearing-house issue. This is not a debate that should be sent somewhere to just ram it through or have no scrutiny. In fact, ironically, this is the bill about scrutiny of government! It should be scrutinised by this House. It should be watched by everybody here and everyone that wants to be here. Let's have this debate in this House. Let's have a fulsome debate. We want to hear arguments. We want to hear why the Prime Minister was wrong when he said, 'We want more transparency and more scrutiny,' and why whoever designed this bill got it wrong in restricting citizens' rights, restricting the media's rights, and restricting what has been a well-functioning system, for all governments, of access to information.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Macnamara, the chief government whip and the chief opposition whip and the member for Longman are not in their seats. You can't interject if you're not in your seat. I'm just reminding everyone. I'm not saying you did, but, everyone, we're just going to have normal rules. Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion. The House of Representatives is the pre-eminent debating forum in this country, and, on an issue that is as important as government accountability and transparency, I would have thought that this government would relish the opportunity to have the debate in this chamber.

I've had the privilege of serving in this place for nine years, mostly on that side of the House rather than this side of the House, and I had the opportunity for six of those nine years to watch the Leader of the House go from Defcon 5 to Defcon 1 over issues around transparency and accountability. In fact, no-one does Defcon 1 like the Leader of the House. The issue of government transparency and accountability was, according to those members opposite—the government—one of their principal tenets, one of their principal pillars. I sat there and listened to speech after speech about how important it is to ensure that we have accountability in this place.

So you can only imagine my great surprise, when the chamber has an opportunity to debate a bill that talks about significantly altering the Freedom of Information Act, about significantly watering down the powers of the people to hold their government to account, that this government wants to send it off to the Federation Chamber, where none of you folk in the gallery will get an opportunity to look at it or listen to it. The students up there all want this matter debated in the House of Representatives, because this is the pre-eminent forum in this country.

Where the government consistently banged on for years and years about the importance of honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability, what do we get? We get the Leader of the House moving a motion to squirrel it away to the Federation Chamber. I say, even though it's his birthday: shame on him. I say to the Leader of the House, based on the previous speech and mine, I think we're getting to you. I know, deep down, that the Leader of the House has some modicum of respect for executive accountability. The concept of executive accountability is one of our fundamental tenets—

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is this an audition for leader? Has he had a haircut as well?

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

I take that interjection from the member for Macnamara—

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He's good: that's it; it's in Hansard!

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

and I hope he's in his correct seat, but I don't think he is.

This is an incredibly important issue. I will speak to the substance of the bill very shortly, and I encourage everybody to hang around for a few moments afterwards. But I implore the Leader of the House to let the sunshine in. This chamber has a skylight, and the best form of disinfectant is sunlight. The Leader of the House might notice that the Federation Chamber does not have a skylight. The House of Representatives will let the sun in and hold to account—it is a sign, it is a metaphor—the executive and this hopeless, arrogant government that would try to introduce a bill that would lessen accountability yet squirrel it away to the Federation Chamber.

For all those people who are listening on their radios, tuning in right now, I ask this question: have you ever even heard of the Federation Chamber? Most Australians will never have heard of the Federation Chamber. They want this debate heard right here today in the House of Representatives.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the gift of a procedural debate today. So, thank you to the Manager of Opposition Business for bringing it on. I'd remind the seconder of the motion that the clocks that count down refer to a time limit, not a time target. When you run out of material and you're left to talk about where the skylights in the building are, you're always allowed to sit down before the clock gets to zero. The option is always available to you.

It is important to explain for the Hansard that, when the Manager of Opposition Business was referring to the fact that the media can come into this room and have the scrutiny of physically being in this room, he gestured to a gallery—which Hansard will not record unless I refer to it now—that actually has nobody in it from the press gallery at this point in time. But the press gallery is able to monitor this in the exact same way as the press gallery is able to monitor the Federation Chamber, because they're both televised and they're both online. They're both available. They're filmed constantly.

But I can tell you that the argument about why we send certain bills to the Federation Chamber has been raised, and I'm surprised that it's being claimed that this is where you send legislation that you don't want anyone to see. Last Tuesday, those opposite moved that their own private member's bill on mandatory minimum sentences be brought on for debate, and guess where they said they wanted it to be debated? The Federation Chamber, the room without a skylight—that's where they wanted their own private member's bill to be debated. We've often had various debates go up there. I hope those opposite would never describe legislation like their own private member's bill, given the topic area, or state sponsors of terrorism or hate crimes legislation in that way. Significant legislation goes there all the time.

What we always look at when we're working out where different pieces of legislation should go is the speaking list, because the speaking list gives an indication of how many members are likely to want to be able to speak. I've got a copy of the speakers list. The environment legislation has been all through the media. It's very important legislation. I introduced it last Thursday. The debate will begin with the relevant shadow minister making a speech, and then the debate will go on. How many people have put their names down to speak on the environment legislation? 48. When we're prioritising which legislation goes here and which goes to the Federation Chamber, I think it's completely significant that a bill that 48 members of parliament have indicated that they want to speak on—a lot are those opposite; more are on the government side, but still I think it's in the order of 18 or something opposition members—be debated in the main chamber. That matters.

Regarding the bill that they've just spoken about, the shadow minister always speaks in the chamber, so the speech from the shadow minister was in the chamber, and that was part of the declaration I've already made. Guess how many people have put their names on the list to speak on freedom of information other than the first speaker? Zero. So we actually have a situation right now where those opposite are taking up 25 minutes of the House's time, the House where they say the debate should happen, to have a debate about bringing a debate here where there are no additional speakers who have put their names forward at all, not one. Forty-eight people put themselves forward for a piece of legislation, so we scheduled the debate for here. No-one other than the shadow minister put their name forward for the freedom-of-information legislation, and they're wanting to have us vote on where no-one should speak. That's what this vote is about. We've just had their speeches, and we're now going to have to bring everybody in here to vote on where the bill with no-one listed to speak should be debated, because that's the issue with transparency. That's what's in front of us right now. I'm sure, now that this has been exposed—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The leader will pause. The Minister for Aged Care and Seniors will cease interjecting, and so will the member for Hume. We're just going to dial it down a bit.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was feeding off of him.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not interested in 'feeding'. I'm interested in keeping order in the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I've said before, we look at the speaking lists. We have a speaking list where we have 48 people wanting to speak, so we put that on for debate. We have a speaking list where no-one other than the shadow minister puts themselves forward to speak and so we put that bill to the Federation Chamber. It is a logical way to manage the House, to make sure that this chamber always has business before it. There are times in the Federation Chamber when, because there are bills that very few people have put themselves down for, it ends up running out of business. It's fine for the Federation Chamber to complete its business, but this House needs to keep going. We therefore favour the bills with the longest speaking lists. That's what has happened. We've heard passionate speeches saying that no-one should be listed to speak and we've heard passionate speeches about skylights. It's probably time that we brought a very silly motion to an end and voted on it.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table the opposition's speaking list on the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill, with 14 speakers at the moment and continuing to grow by the moment.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think we've ever tabled speaking lists, and this is clearly a new document. There's a process that the whips do. I presume, if you have to talk to the whip about it—you are the whip, aren't you? How do you not know the process? Leave's not granted.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is not granted, but we'll ensure that the lists are circulated.