Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

Last night in the lower house, the Prime Minister made a joke about being asked about transparency, and then he tabled a leaked Liberal Party report and said:

I'm asked about transparency. They don't get to read their reports, so I'll table it for them so that they can read the report …

The Prime Minister should know that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. According to the research from the Centre for Public Integrity, in this government's first term more FOI requests were refused than were fully granted. The rate of outright refusals has nearly doubled and average processing times for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner increased from six months to 15 months.

When they were in opposition, the Albanese government promised transparency and integrity. But, once again, they got into power and they embraced secrecy. Prime Minister Morrison never promoted transparency as a good thing, but the Albanese government promotes transparency while trying to kill it off at every opportunity.

Remember what happened last year? The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet prepared a document. It was leaked to the ABC. This document gave public servants advice to help them dodge tricky questions during estimates. This document also directed public servants on how to provide vague answers to questions on notice filed as part of the Senate estimates accountability process. In September 2025, the Prime Minister told the UK Labour Party:

We all know this is a time when trust in governments and institutions is under challenge.

When the Prime Minister delivered this speech, it was in the context of major parties like Labour in the UK and in Australia responding to the threat of minor parties. Well, they should be worried, because their primary vote for both major parties is at a record low—and that would include the Labor Party. So why is the Prime Minister clamping down on FOIs, why are they blocking documents from the Senate and why are they pushing an FOI bill that makes it even harder for Australians to know what their government is up to? How is that building trust with Australians? How does that do that job? Seriously—you're not helping yourselves. The sort of games that we see Labor playing in the Senate won't reassure Australians that you are a trustworthy government. You are far from it.

An OPD is an order for the production of documents. In other words, Australians, it's how the Senate gets access to a document that the government doesn't want us to have. It is one of the Senate's most important oversight powers, and this is how it works. A senator goes in for an order for documents and, if a senator gets enough votes—a majority—only then does the government have to cough up the document and bring it to the Senate chamber. When the politicians came back to Canberra on 4 February, the Albanese government decided it was going to try and amend every order for the production of documents being proposed to make them absolutely meaningless. In doing so, it inserted a complaint in each of its amendments, stating:

(a) orders for the production of documents is one of the Senate's most serious powers, and should be used when other processes have been exhausted rather than for fishing expeditions …

The problem with the statement is that it is completely wrong and completely disrespectful of the 200 years of history of this power and where it fits into the parliament's constitutional role. There is no authority to suggest that it is a power to be used after processes have been exhausted. That is rubbish. The point is that the order for production is to go 'fishing' into the affairs of your government, especially when your government doesn't want the Senate to look!

This is the Albanese government arrogantly seeking to be the sole decision-maker of senators' inquiry topics. The power to order the production of documents is not one that can be used by a single Senator. The order can be made only when the order is supported by the majority of the Senate. It is the Senate, not the government, that decides what documents the government must surrender. If a senator is being reckless and playing politics, the proposed order may not get up. So this is what they were up to last night, Australians. The government attached the same time-wasting amendments to each OPD, wasting hours of the Senate time and treating senators like annoying schoolkids. We are a house of review and we are elected to hold the government to account. It is that simple.

Minister Gallagher told the Senate again this morning that the coalition and the crossbench were using OPDs as fishing exercises. She accused us all of abusing our power and wasting the Senate's time. What absolute hypocrites they are. If the government would just release these documents in the first place, we wouldn't have this problem. The reason there are so many OPDs is that your government keeps blocking them—not to mention the way you drag your feet on FOIs. To be clear: this government is saying to the Australian public, 'You don't deserve to know what is in these documents, you don't deserve transparency, you don't deserve accountability and you sure as hell don't deserve the truth.' They say we should all just let the government get on with it, ram its crap through and that's it. That's what they're here for. Well, I'm sorry, but we are not.