2016-03-09
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I have debated many, many similar motions over the last nine years, where we have had many opportunities to tease out the various principles and considerations that both Ms Wooldridge and Mr Leane have put forward. But just for the benefit of any casual listener, let me talk about what is at stake here, and this is a matter that I do not think has been particularly highlighted by either of the previous speakers. What is at stake is whether the Parliament, in doing its business — legislating, scrutinising the government — is to operate on the basis of an informed position with access to relevant information or whether it is meant to fumble around in the dark. That is in fact the key principle here, and if this issue ever gets contested in another sphere — such as if this ends up over in the judicial sphere — one of the fundamental principles they will need to weigh up is the capacity of the Parliament to inform itself, without which some would argue the Parliament really could not do its job.
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — Mr Mulino, who I think is going to get a crack after me, is saying, 'Subject to limits', and that is exactly what we will be talking about when I expand out some of the statements that have already been made by other speakers. What, if any, are those limits and who, if there are such limits, actually gets to decide? At the moment the only proposition I have heard from Mr Leane is that if the government says a document is secret, then it is secret and that is it. He has not put forward any mechanism by which that particular claim is tested or challenged or even the conflict that arises would be resolved. He did a pretty good job of issuing a threat to opposition members — that is, that one day they will find themselves in the opposite position, and maybe they will not like the precedent they are setting.
It actually came across as a pretty hollow threat, because what Mr Leane was basically saying was that even if he were in opposition, he would still support the principle that the government can say that any document is secret and that will be that. If that was meant to make opposition members think twice, I do not think they are going to be too worried.
Honourable members interjecting.
Mr BARBER — It seems like it.
[Speech was interrupted.]
Mr BARBER — Well, yes. It is a great shame we did not hear Mr Jennings as the lead government speaker, because we would have been able to dispose of that particular question and get down to some of the more meaty chunks.
I am as surprised as Mr Leane to see opposition members come in here and actually move this motion, because it is absolutely true that when they were last in government they parroted the exact same arguments that Mr Leane put up today. While they did go through the motions of releasing some documents, it was the important information that had to be held back, lest the Parliament, standing in the shoes of the people, might plunge us into some terrible danger by actually learning about some of these details.
Let us talk about the matters that we are supposed to be talking about. There are a range of documents in relation to the port of Melbourne and a range of documents in relation to the proposed West Gate distributor. That is the new name for the east–west link; it is now the west–east link — it starts from the west and works its way east, rather than the Liberal proposal. At the end of the day it puts a lot more trucks and a lot more poisonous diesel through the inner city and does not really solve the congestion problem, because eventually that traffic is dumped into an inner city road system that is at capacity. There are the Australian Formula One Grand Prix documents — some people might like that debate to be over, but unfortunately the state subsidy gets higher and higher every year and so the debate will never be over while it continues — and the Cranbourne-Pakenham rail corridor project documents. More and more interesting questions continue to come to light no matter how closely you scrutinise the issue.
It depends on whether you are asking about the noise levels, asking for some proof of the government's claim that it will be less noisy, asking for some proof of the government's claim that it will increase capacity or just a simple question of what is the actual design and who is it — local government perhaps, burdened ratepayers — that will end up maintaining it.
There is the Peter Mac Private hospital documents and, last but not least, my absolute favourite: the previous Liberal government's proposal now being implemented by the Labor government to give $75 million to a range of projects that are going to massively increase Victoria's greenhouse gas pollution and in fact lock in that level of pollution for many years to come. When Mr Leane talks about commercial in confidence, I think that is one particular example that we need to unpack and highlight.
Mr Leane talked a lot about the deliberations of cabinet, but in fact one of the documents we are seeking here is simply a grant funding agreement between some polluting coal companies and the state of Victoria. I am not particularly interested in the deliberations of cabinet around that matter. I do not want to know whether the Minister for Energy and Resources was smashing her fist repeatedly into the table saying, 'No, no, we must give this money to a coal-fired power company', while the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water shrank under the table saying, 'Oh my God, I cannot believe I am actually here funding greenhouse pollution!'. I am not interested in the cut and thrust of the cabinet debate. I am not interested in who said what to whom, but I am particularly interested in why we are giving $75 million to lock in greenhouse pollution and in fact what particular milestones these companies have to deliver before they get that public money.
Mr Leane — and I do not think I am verballing him on this — basically came in and said that the government would shut down if it had to release commercial information, which in this instance is being funded by the taxpayers to then go out and run some sort of polluting coal-fired plant somewhere. When we outsourced government services, when we privatised a vast range of essential services, when we destroyed in-house research and development capacity in regard to new energy options and handed that over to the private sector, Mr Leane seems to think we outsourced Westminster accountability for how those funds are being spent. I am sorry, but the only thing that has changed in recent years is the structure of government service delivery.
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