Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship for an explanation as to why answers have not been provided to the 445 questions on notice from the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in the immigration and citizenship portfolio asked during the supplementary budget estimates hearing in October 2010? They are now approximately nine weeks overdue.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would first like to thank Senator Cash for doing me the courtesy of raising this matter prior to question time. I understand that my office did get back to her office on the matter. My office and I personally have raised the matter with the office of the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. I have been advised of the following: there was a total of 445 questions lodged, many of which had subparts and which, as was indicated, were taken on notice at the supplementary budget estimates hearing. Many of the questions sought detailed information on a number of complex and sensitive issues. I am sure that any fair-minded person would acknowledge that the period since the hearing has been one of exceptionally high tempo for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. I am assured that the department is putting significant effort into providing all responses to the committee. I have also been assured that all questions will be answered promptly.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister’s explanation.

I have been pursuing the answers to the 445 questions—of which 326 were asked by me, as I understand it—outstanding from this estimates committee. Whilst I accept the response given by Minister Carr was given in his role as Acting Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, I am sure that if these matters were within Minister Carr’s portfolio and he were in charge of the answers then I would not be standing here today. I am sure that Minister Carr would have ensured that his department provided me with the answers. The blame needs to be squarely put at the door of the relevant minister—and that is Minister Bowen—and the failure of the department to provide answers to questions on notice, at least nine weeks after the due date, represents yet another failing within what is an exceptionally important portfolio.

My attack today is not directed at Senator Carr, because I understand he is merely delivering a message to me in his acting capacity. I know that, if I were Minister Carr, I would be very embarrassed about having to stand here today and deliver that message to the Senate on behalf of the relevant minister. Minister Carr has been well and truly let down by Minister Bowen in this regard. Despite the alleged complexity of the questions that I have asked, they are questions that can be readily answered by referring to departmental records or to government policy documents, something which I would have thought Minister Bowen, as the relevant minister, would be able to do. That is clearly not the case. The evidence is that not one of the 445 questions that were placed on notice in October last year have been responded to by the minister or his department. This casts doubt over whether or not the minister actually understands his portfolio and it also casts doubt on his capacity to actually discharge his functions as Minister for Immigration and Citizenship.

If Minister Bowen is having trouble getting answers to the questions on notice from his department then perhaps it is time for him to look very closely at the senior management in his department. The question arises: is the department letting down the minister or, alternatively, is the minister letting down this parliament? No wonder we have problems in Immigration, with Minister Bowen obviously running for cover and not wanting to admit to the Australian people, by providing answers to questions that have been quite rightly asked during the estimates period, what is going on in his department.

The date set for the answering of the questions from the October supplementary hearing was 3 December 2010, some nine weeks ago. The minister and his department are well aware that this time period has well and truly expired. I do not think it comes as any surprise to anyone in this chamber that we have not received any answers at all—not one—to the 445 questions which the opposition have on notice. There is a reason for that. Despite the rhetoric that the Prime Minister of Australia has been espousing, in particular, when she took over as Prime Minister, saying that she prided herself on running a government that would maintain the highest standards of openness and transparency what we now have, reflected in the minister’s failure to ensure that answers were provided to these questions, is a government that is running at 100 miles an hour from that statement by the Prime Minister. When Prime Minister Julia Gillard was elected, one of the promises she made to the Australian people—we can now clearly see and we will remember that this is just yet another one of her broken promises—was that she would open the windows and ‘let the sunshine in’. That was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, on 7 September—after the election—in an article with a huge banner headline, ‘Let the sunshine in’. The article stated:

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, says her minority government will be held to higher standards of accountability as a result of the deal struck with the independents.

              …              …              …

We will be held to higher standards of transparency and reform and it’s in that spirit that I approach the task of forming government.

One can only say that the relevant minister was not paying attention when his exulted leader was speaking. The Australian people are then entitled to ask this question: if he was not paying attention, what else has this minister failed to pay attention to? What else has this minister missed that is of critical importance to his portfolio? I remind the minister that accountability and openness in government requires those who exercise power while performing the functions of government to demonstrate in an open and practical sense that they have discharged their duty in a proper manner for the common good and in the public interest. In that regard, this minister and his department get a big fail. Perhaps the worst aspect of dealing with the former Rudd government and the current Gillard government is their lack of transparency, despite their continual rhetoric about being held to higher standards of openness and transparency. It is all rhetoric. They never had any intention of maintaining these standards. This is reflected in the response from Minister Carr today. Minister Bowen needs to understand and remember that every senator, as an elected member of the Senate, has fundamental constitutional and other rights conferred upon them which they are entitled to exercise in this chamber. One of those fundamental rights is that we are entitled to ask questions of the government. We are also entitled in asking those questions to receive considered answers to them in a timely manner. Minister Bowen has well and truly failed the test of accountability on every possible count. When it comes to the promise of openness and transparency that they made on the record to the taxpayer, the government clearly never had any intention of keeping it.

I remind the minister that, to enable a senator—and I include those on the other side in this—to properly exercise their duty, the government should be giving them answers to the questions that they ask. It is not good enough and will never be good enough for a minister to seek to avoid answering questions as this minister has done. This is what we have seen with the answer that was provided today by Minister Carr to my question. Was I surprised by the answer that was provided? No. This government, this department and this minister have not provided any answers at all to the 445 questions that are currently on notice. I am not surprised by that. Neither would the Australian public be surprised. When it comes to the discharge of his duties under this portfolio, this minister has completely failed the Australian people. The fact is that Minister Bowen is failing to ensure that his department provides to the Senate information that it has quite rightly and quite properly requested.

I thank Senator Carr for his response. It was an honest response. He was merely delivering a message that he had received from Minister Bowen. I understand that, if Minister Carr does not have the answers to those questions, he is unable to provide them to me today. However, it is an absolute indictment on Minister Bowen that, nine weeks after the due date for answers to these questions, not even one has been answered. He has not had the courtesy to provide even one answer to the 445 questions that are outstanding.

The question that the Australian people need to be considering is this: is the department letting the minister down? If the department is letting the minister down, the minister needs to have a very good look at his department. If it is not, then the only answer is that the minister is letting this parliament down, and that is contemptuous.

Question agreed to.