David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate Catherine Williams and the Centre for Public Integrity, and I thank them for their research into the declining transparency of the 47th parliament. In the last parliament, the Albanese government was more secretive than the Morrison government, which had a prime minister who had five secret ministries—quite an achievement! We know now from this research that the Albanese government is the second most secret government since 1993. Under the Keating government, compliance with OPDs was 92.5 per cent. Under the Albanese government in the last term, it was 32.8 per cent—less than a third of OPDs were complied with. Just one in four FOI requests are now granted in full—the lowest on record.

I have a challenge for the newly elected Labor government: you've got to do better than this. I heard so much, before I came to this place, about how Labor were going to do better, how much they smashed the Morrison government around secrecy and transparency, but it turns out that, when they actually get in the hot seat, they are more secretive. Scott Morrison's government was more transparent, respected the Senate more and complied with OPDs. This matters in our democracy and it matters more now than ever, when we have a Labor government with a whopping majority in the lower house. The Senate needs to be respected when it passes orders for the production of documents that it deems necessary to undertake our jobs, to represent our states or territories. It is not good enough. More Australians need to know that the last parliament under Labor was the most secretive in, probably, their lifetimes. You've got to do better.