Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

If there is one thing that both sides of this place should be able to agree on, it is Australians having a right to know how their government spends its money. That is why, today, we gave Senator Brandis the opportunity to in fact answer that question when we asked about the recent allegations in relation to cash incentives provided to people smugglers to return them to Indonesia. We did not get a straight answer—in fact any answer worth any merit—out of Senator Brandis. Instead, we got the usual mantra which the government is sticking to at the present time—as opposed to last week—of it being an operational matter.

This government, in doing this and hiding this from people, simply shows a lack of commitment to transparency and the rule of law. On the one hand, you have the Prime Minister saying one thing, with a discrepancy then with what the immigration and foreign ministers said last week. We know now that Minister Dutton and Minister Bishop are backtracking from the statement that a cash exchange did not happen. Today, Senator Brandis had a clear opportunity to make it clear to the Australian people where their taxpayer money has been spent.

The opposition will get to the bottom of this, if Senator Brandis refuses to do so, as our shadow immigration minister has written to the Auditor-General to investigate whether or not these payments did occur. In the meantime, our ongoing relationship with Indonesia is being jeopardised. We only have to see now the reports by the Indonesian Vice President, Jusuf Kalla, who said that the practice would be unethical and would make Australia a party to people smuggling. If the government has not provided payments to people smugglers to turn back boats to Indonesia, why won't it say that it has not? It will not say that. That can only lead to the summation that the likelihood is that it has. Not only would this be a state bribing but it could also turn out to be contributing to human trafficking as well. This is incredibly serious. It is so serious that Mr Kalla, the Vice President of Indonesia, has said so himself. He said clearly:

… a state bribing, that certainly doesn't fit with the correct ethics in state relations.

Senator Brandis, the Attorney-General of this country, today had ample opportunity to tell us that the government has not paid people smugglers. He is inviting us to think that this is exactly what has happened, in not answering the question and in trying to hide behind this mantra of operational matters. Operational matters for what purpose? There is no national security threat here in relation to raising operational matters. It is clearly a media strategy that is being now used by this government as it goes into damage control. First, we had it going into damage control from leaks from cabinet in relation to citizenship—leaks that Senator Brandis has ruled out that he leaked, but we know that somebody did leak within the government's cabinet. All over the place, are they, on citizenship changes. We don't even know what is coming forth; we have not seen any legislation, in that regard. That is probably because there is so much division and leaking going on from the cabinet that they do not know which way to turn next.

On top of that, we have this issue of cash incentives to people smugglers, to return them to Indonesia, that the government will not rule out. Again, there is no transparency from this government. In doing so, the government is offering people smugglers a new business model. The government needs to be very careful here. We will get to the bottom of this. We have written to the Auditor-General's Department to ask them to investigate whether or not these payments did occur. This is serious for this country, serious for our relationship with Indonesia and serious if this government is really serious about trying to stop boats.