Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee on the order for the production of documents by the Australian Taxation Office, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I will make a few brief remarks here and some more fulsome remarks a little later, when we consider the Senate Economics Committee's report on whistleblowers.

I just want to say at this point that it's important, when dealing with very sensitive issues such as this one, that we have respect across the chamber, including with the crossbenchers. I want to acknowledge the role that Senator Patrick has played in initiating and following through on this particular matter. I also wish to thank the minister for complying with the order for the production of documents, albeit with some restrictions on the information due to its highly sensitive nature. I wish to acknowledge all members of the committee for their sensitive handling of that information. It is important, in doing our jobs, that we acknowledge that some information we seek to look at—I know Senator Patrick is very well aware of this—is highly sensitive. In this case it potentially involves the tax records of individuals and matters which were, rightly, internal to the ATO. I think there is a degree to which this place, particularly the committee system, operates with that high level of trust. So I wish to acknowledge all members of the committee, in particular Senator Patrick, for complying with the trusted nature of the information that we were supplied with in looking at this matter and presenting the short report—the one-page report—on the order for the production of documents to the chamber.

When we're dealing with these matters, in a public policy sense it's very important to strike a correct balance. Not only does justice need to be done; justice needs to be seen to be done. When bodies undertake investigations of highly sensitive information, it's very important that there is trust from the general public in the way that that information is handled. As I said, I'll make some additional remarks a little later on when we deal with the whistleblower report.