STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (13:52): Parliament House is the people's house. Those in the other place are here to represent their electorates. In here we're representing our states and territories.

Yet in Parliament House we have a system of sponsored passes where there is absolutely no transparency. The people who elected us and sent us here have no idea who we are giving passes to, why they're in the building and who they're advocating on behalf of. It's time for this system to have a bit of transparency.

I've been pushing this in the Senate, at estimates and through inquiries over the last four years, with no interest from the Albanese Labor government. So today I've launched a voluntary pass register, passregister.com.au, where parliamentarians can tell the people that elected them who they're giving sponsored passes to—who they're giving access-all-areas passes to for Parliament House.

So far, there are 13 parliamentarians that have disclosed 78 sponsored passholders. That's 78 out of between 1,500 and 2,000—so a long way to go, but a good start. I'd like to acknowledge the Independents and Senator Whitten, who have so far disclosed.

Not a single member of the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the National Party or indeed the Greens believes that they need to disclose to their electorate or to their state and territory who they're giving access to. Parliamentarians are free to put it on up on their website so it's publicly available, or we can put it on passregister.com.au. I really think it's time to raise the standard when it comes to transparency.

This is the people's house. People deserve to know, at a minimum, who has access to the people 's house.