Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the performance of the Assistant Treasurer.

Before I address the answer given by Senator Gallagher in response to my question on the performance of the Assistant Treasurer, I think it's very, very important to recognise this very, very important and momentous occasion. The government has surrendered on its commitment to transparency and scrutiny. What we just heard in the final question asked by Senator Birmingham was the revelation that many of us caught a glimpse of this morning that the government has decided that it will not put itself to the normal test of scrutiny that other governments have put themselves to for two to three decades. What we're talking about here is the decision of the government to take out of the parliamentary program four days of budget estimates. That is almost 60 hours of scrutiny that the opposition and other non-government senators can put the government through. It is the first time in almost 30 years that the government has consciously decided to remove itself from scrutiny.

This is perhaps the most remarkable revelation in the six-month history of the government so far. Of course, there is a 'get out of jail' clause for the government, and that is that it's a draft program—