Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table correspondence on the schedule of special purpose flights and related correspondence.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the documents.

It's disappointing that the tabling of this schedule required the opposition, in order to get this information, to follow up with the minister first by letter, then by order of the Senate and then by asking the minister questions in Senate question time. It should be very clear what the minister's obligations are in this regard. Senator Reynolds is responsible for tabling the schedule of special purpose flights in June for the six months ending the previous 31 December, and in December for the six months ending the previous 30 June. So this represents a failure to meet the guidelines, which is becoming manifestly routine under this government in terms of the government's obligations to this chamber. It has routinely been tabled late—in one case over eight months late. The previously tabled schedule, for the six months ending 31 December 2018, was not tabled until 28 August 2019.

It is this track record that saw the Senate, on 11 February, order that the schedule of special purpose flights for the period from 1 January to 30 June 2019—so the Senate took action some six months later—be tabled by the Minister for Defence by no later than 9.30 am on 13 February. There was no response to that order, and again the minister had to be followed up in question time. The order had, in fact, fallen off the Notice Paper and had to be reprompted by Senator Wong asking the minister a question in this place. The minister completely disregarded that order, responding with a letter that she has not yet received the final verified report from Defence. I understand that the minister wants that information from Defence, but you need to require Defence to give you that information. It's your job to do so. It's simply not good enough that the guidelines that are required by this place are ignored. Evidence given by the Department of Defence was that the minister sat on the last schedule for some 71 days. It's all very well for the minister to sheet home blame to the department when actually we know that last time the information sat within the minister's purview for some 71 days.

So we call on the minister to meet her obligations under the guidelines and to the Senate. The matters raised in this issue will be explored further in estimates next week, and we would like to be able to determine the cause of the delay in tabling the schedule. If the minister is able to take note of that now, that would help proceedings next week. It escapes no-one that the tabling of this document today minimises time for it to be examined in advance of next week's hearings, but I assure the minister and this chamber that we'll be taking a very close look and following it up.

Debate adjourned.