DOCUMENTS

Senator BRAGG (New South Wales) (10:13): I move: That the Senate take note of the explanation. I have to say I'm not surprised that the government have come in here today and not provided appropriate answers to the questions that were put to the Senate and agreed by this Senate. This is about the expenditure of public funds.

It's a $10 billion scheme which has been running for two years and has only built—we think—maybe 17 houses, 2,000 houses or no houses. The point of this particular order for production was to ascertain exactly what happened with the $277 million remaining in the HAFF fund at 30 June 2025. The HAFF is required to spend $500 million each financial year.

The Department of Finance reports that only $223 million had been debited in 2024-25, so we wrote to the Auditor-General to seek a performance audit. They wrote back and said that, in fact, the remaining $277 million had been debited and given to Housing Australia to spend on round 1 of the HAFF. The problem is that we can't actually see where that $277 million of taxpayer funds has gone.

The reason I say that I'm not surprised about this is that this is the most secretive government since the Keating government. It's a secretive government. It has a shocking record of responding to orders for the production of documents.

The Centre for Public Integrity has actually marked the government's work here and said that this is the worst in 30 years. This government is more secretive than a government led by a man who swore himself into secret ministries. That is the standard of this particular government.

It campaigned on being transparent and showing great integrity, but it has shown that it is obsessed with covering up its use of public funds. The use of these off-budget funds is massively problematic. Here you have a $10 billion scheme—that's a lot of taxpayer funds—and we can't even see where the money is going.

We have no idea which projects it has funded. We have no idea what the commercial arrangements might be. When the Labor government feigns surprise when we come in and ask questions about the Housing Australia Future Fund, it's because we can't get any answers.

Freedom of information requests are blocked and blacked out. When you get a freedom of information request back from this government, all you see is black ink and no material information. The orders for the production of documents are blocked, blocked, blocked.

One of their favourite tools to use is the public interest immunity claim. In fact, Mr Chalmers, the Treasurer of the Commonwealth, has been found to have used false public interest immunity claims when he made them in relation to documents provided to him by the Cbus super fund. The Treasurer filed a public interest immunity claim with this Senate, which said that it would not provide the documents that Cbus had given the Treasurer because they were commercial-in-confidence.

We appealed that because we had a parallel piece of paper in with the Information Commissioner, and the Information Commissioner found that, in fact, that document should be provided because it was not commercial-in-confidence and that what Cbus was doing was lobbying the Treasurer to try and get preferential access and deals. In this case, it was trying to cover up the stamp duty fees paid by the super fund to its members.

Now we see that one of the outcomes of the economic roundtable was that the government wants to help the super funds cover up stamp duty fees to their members so that they can become the corporate landlords of Australians. I've often said that this is a government for vested interests. But I thought that, when they had a productivity roundtable, it was genuinely about productivity.

In fact, it was all about lining the coffers of their mates with the ideas that were already provided to them in the last term, such as helping the super funds become massive corporate landlords. That is what stinks about this government. Beyond it being the most secretive and untransparent government since the Keating government, it won't even say where it is spending taxpayer funds.

I suspect that there is a range of unsavoury financial arrangements that exist between the unions, the super funds, Minister Chalmers and his government, and the Housing Australia Future Fund. Senator McAllister: On a point of order, Senator Bragg has just reflected in the most inappropriate way on Mr Chalmers in the other place. I think he should withdraw it.

Senator Scarr: On a point of order, I was listening very closely to Senator Bragg, as I'm sure all Australians are, and, from my perspective, his comments were very well chosen and certainly consistent with other practice I've seen in this place. I saw nothing disorderly in the comments whatsoever. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Ciccone ): Senator Bragg, it would be helpful if you could clarify that the remarks you made about the Treasurer do not go to any of the standing orders or breach any unparliamentary language.

It would be helpful if you could assist the chair and the chamber, particularly around your last comments about the Treasurer. I also remind you to refer to members in the other place by their correct titles. Senator BRAGG: I'm happy to clarify my point, which is that the Treasurer filed a false public interest immunity claim with this Senate to cover up documents that he received from Cbus and that the information commissioner later found should have been made publicly available.

It was a disgraceful occurrence that the Treasurer of the Commonwealth used his position to cover up secret lobbying to aid his corporate housing agenda.