Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to continue with my contribution on our private senators' time. I know that this is not Labor's favourite time of the day, but we are going to make sure that Labor has a lot of not-very-favourite times of the day because, as long as you behave this way, as long as you are hiding in the shadows, as long as you play games—well, unfortunately, you might think that you can crunch the opposition whenever you choose to do so, but you don't own the chamber. There are in fact more of us around the ends than there are over there. You can hide. You can refuse to produce documents. You can try and create legislation that has no oversight and no ability for scrutiny, but it will not stand. You who stood so gallantly prior to an election and said, 'We will be the most transparent government that this country has ever seen'—that didn't last long, did it? It didn't last long.

Senator Pocock pointed out that only 33 per cent, one in three, of your orders for the production of documents have come through—one in three. Aren't you ashamed? Aren't you embarrassed? You should be embarrassed. This bill that we're talking about today is to improve transparency. It's to improve accountability. It's to improve governance. These are issues that you said are important to you. Yet somehow, when it's convenient for Labor, those principles are simply set aside. They're set aside, and the behaviour we've seen in the chamber today has demonstrated that. For the sake of the Hansard transcript, I think it's probably worth noting that, just today, we have seen Labor respond to, in the most petulant and sulky way, a requirement of this chamber that they provide documents, and we have said around this chamber that we have the numbers to make sure that they do. If they don't, we will extend question time.