Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Just briefly, I remind the Senate that the Greens supported the opposition motion to have the Henry tax review tabled in the Senate. The minister, Senator Sherry, has said that the government has had this for six weeks now. There is no doubt that it was commissioned by the government, but that was on behalf of the people of Australia. Our job in the Senate is to ensure that government is not simply held by the executive. If you are going to discuss governance of the country you have to have the information upon which you base that discussion. As far as we are concerned, the Henry tax review is the property of the Australian people and should be available for analysis. If the government wants to take time to respond to the tax review—and I think that is in order—it simply has to say that. But the review should be available. For the minister to say, ‘Sometime in the early part of this year,’ without naming a date is totally unsatisfactory.

What we are seeing is a serial leaking of the contents, and presumably the recommendations, of the tax review by a government which is very closely managing the release of that information and is using it as a political mechanism for its own advantage, against the interests of the wider Australian populace. What the minister did not do was give the Senate any cogent reason at all for withholding this document—no reason whatsoever. The document should be available to the Senate. I take it as a great affront to the Senate that the government has said it is going to thumb its nose at a resolution of this Senate calling on that document to be tabled. The fact is that the government can sit on the document, but in doing so it is thumbing its nose not just at this Senate but at the Australian people. Sure, it is information control and management for political purposes, but I submit that it does the government no good. It is an affront to the Senate and the government is thumbing its nose at the Australian people. The government should reconsider this decision to ignore a resolution of the Senate and should produce the document.

Question agreed to.