Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the censure of the Treasurer and the Minister representing the Treasurer, as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in my name, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the censure of the Treasurer and the Minister representing the Treasurer.

This motion is about a serious failure of ministerial accountability. When ministers ask the parliament to pass major legislation, they themselves have an obligation to know it, to explain it and to provide the Senate with the information that the Senate needs to properly scrutinise it. If anyone saw the interview with the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on the weekend, he failed on all of those counts. On this legislation, those standards were abandoned. That is why this motion censures the Treasurer and the Minister representing the Treasurer in the Senate.

Just look at the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. They were asked to examine, in but two days, some of what even the Prime Minister has admitted are the most serious and significant tax changes that Australians have seen in years. Australians, you would have thought, were entitled to answers. Instead, what did they get? They got confusion, contradiction and, worse than that, evasion. Treasury officials failed to answer basic questions about how the legislation would operate, how it had been developed and what its consequences would be. Australians are now waking up to what those consequences are.

If ministers ask the parliament to legislate major tax legislation, the least the parliament is entitled to expect is that the minister, and their own department, can actually explain it when questions are asked. Instead, what did Australians get? They got the extraordinary situation where neither the Treasury officials nor the Treasurer himself, Dr Chalmers, could properly explain significant aspects of the legislation. If the Treasurer himself cannot actually explain the significant aspects of his legislation, why should Australians themselves have any confidence in it?

Sadly, that was only the beginning. After the committee had completed its work and witnesses had given evidence, lo and behold, the government actually announced that it has found serious flaws in the legislation and needs to amend it.