Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I believe this cabinet-in-confidence document is in the hands of Senator Patrick right now in the chamber. He can get that as a private citizen, but the government denied the Senate to have access to it. This is a total disgrace, and there are very many more examples—the submarine design and mobilisation contract, the future frigate tender and the other matters to which Senator Patrick has referred today. To me as a citizen of this great nation, why is none of this information allowed to be released to the Senate under the appropriate orders yet is able to be provided to members of the public even if its production has originally been classified as doing possible damage to national security? When the Information Commissioner sat still and had a look at this without the rush and the push, it didn't meet the test.

How is it not in the public's interest to know if their money is being spent wisely when it comes to buying back tens of millions of dollars in water entitlements from a Cayman Islands based entity through opaque tender processes? I would think that knowing that is in Australian citizens' interests. Why did the government seemingly fail to obtain value for money with a company desperate to sell these entitlements? The Australian public have a right to know, and their duly elected representatives should be treated with a respect that trust entails.

As a duty senator to most of western New South Wales and many river communities that depend on the plan, I demand on behalf of the citizens of New South Wales that the government be upfront with the members of this chamber. This is not just a one-off case of poor judgement; it's a systemic issue. These PII claims are thrown up like paper roadblocks, obstructing our work here for months and months—and, in some cases, years—through what are revealed now by the release of documents by the Information Commissioner as clearly and ultimately specious reasoning, but they get the job done that the government want them to do. It's a deceptive government that hides its failures in darkness.

This lot over here clock on day in, day out, they continue to collect money as they pass go and they are treating the Australian people like mushrooms—loads of manure and lots of darkness. That is both their policy and their practice. They think they win when the public moves on, when journalists move on, when the momentum dies down and the government regains from the brief and piercing shaft of sunlight interrogating their disgraceful practices.

I'll tell you what happens when a government is addicted to darkness, to hiding the truth and preventing the truth from being told in this place. What happens is what's happening right now in aged care. Today, 412 Australians in aged-care settings are not with us. Their families are mourning their loss. Their families are desperately seeking answers. They want to know how this could happen to somebody they loved—somebody they put into a place that was subject to the scrutiny of the federal parliament under the minister. The reason it's happening is that this government has hidden and hidden and hidden for years and years. We have seen seven long years of government neglect of the aged-care sector, seven years of failing to respond to reports and seven years of ignoring the plight of decent, hardworking Australians who did nothing wrong except become older and find their way into an aged-care setting. The government is running and hiding from that as well.

This is a government of darkness and denial. This is a government that refuses to tell the truth. This is a government that hides documents that this chamber needs in order to hold it to account. It's replete in every single policy area. There is robodebt, with hundreds of thousands of Australians served up with debt. The government, to this day, claims public interest immunity. It claims that it is not in the public interest for us to know if it took legal advice before it hurt all those lives. In this place, on this very day, we have been debating the impact of that decision. Just a couple of weeks ago, I put on the record details of the suicide of two young men. There are many more who have just lost hope because of the actions of this government and I dare say, if decent scrutiny were applied, if we had access to the documents that we need, if we had a government that showed some decency and remorse for its failings, we might have a lot more of those 421 Australians alive in aged care. We might not have the terrible trauma that has been inflicted on people across this country because of robodebt, and we might have a better idea about what went on in the Murray-Darling Basin sales. This is a disgrace. It's got to stop.