Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a five-minute statement about an answer given by Minister Nash today in question time.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate. I rise to address a most serious matter which relates to the obligation of all of us in this place to not mislead the chamber. Of course, in the case of ministers who are accountable to the chamber, the obligation is even more onerous.

Senators would be aware that the opposition has asked the Assistant Minister for Health a series of questions this week arising from her decision to order the removal of the Health Star Rating system website. The minister misled the Senate during question time on Tuesday by stating her chief of staff had 'no connection whatsoever' to the food industry. The minister came in during the adjournment debate some five hours later to correct her misleading statement. In doing so, the minister revealed that her chief of staff has a direct interest in a lobbying firm that represents the food industry, including Cadbury, Kraft and the Beverages Council.

Today, in question time, the minister was asked if she would reverse her decision and restore the website, which was removed without consultation with the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation. In response, the minister said:

… the forum took a unanimous decision to have an extensive cost-benefit analysis done that was due to report back to the forum in June this year. It was premature to have the website live until this report was completed.

It is very important to understand that this is one of the reasons that this minister has given for her decision to intervene to take the website down. One of three reasons was that she said 'the forum took a unanimous decision'.

On the face of the documents, including the communique from the meeting, this statement is inconsistent with the record of the meeting. On the face of the documents the statement is not true. The communique from the forum held in Melbourne on 13 December and attended by the minister and her conflicted chief of staff records that the forum did not unanimously agree to an extensive cost-benefit analysis before the website went live. In fact, the communique records the forum made no decision, unanimous or otherwise, to conduct a more extensive cost-benefit analysis before the website went live. In fact, the communique notes that the minister would direct her department—not a unanimous decision, but the minister unilaterally directing her department—to conduct a more extensive cost-benefit analysis; that is, it was the minister's initiative, not the forum's.

Not only does the minister's answer today not provide any justification for her decision to phone a public servant to demand that a website be taken down; but on the face of these documents Assistant Minister Nash has misled the Senate for a second time. Twice in three days the Assistant Minister for Health has on the face of these documents misled this Senate. Three or four hours after question time has concluded, this minister has not come into the chamber to correct the record. She must do so. She must explain the inconsistency between the formal record and her answer to this chamber, and she must do so immediately.