MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Senator DOWLING (Tasmania) (16:50): I do admire the gall or maybe the memory loss of those standing opposite talking about integrity. When it comes to integrity, the Labor government aren't just passing the test; we're rewriting the syllabus. Since coming to office, we've done more to strengthen transparency and accountability than the coalition managed in their whole decade of dimly lit back rooms.
We've established the National Anti-Corruption Commission—something the Liberals promised for years but never delivered. They couldn't bring themselves to shine a light on corruption, because they prefer the dark. We've strengthened the ministerial code of conduct, restored funding for the Auditor-General and reinstated the independent privacy and FOI commissioners—roles the coalition left vacant for so long they should have been heritage listed.
We've implemented the Bell inquiry into Mr Morrison's secret ministries and cleaned out the AAT, ending the Liberal Party's long experiment in mateship based hiring, and we've lifted Australia's ranking in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index from 18th under the coalition to 10th under Labor—not bad for a government accused of secrecy by the mob who invented it.
We're modernising the freedom of information system built in the 1980s—back when faxes were cutting edge and transparency meant leaving your office door ajar. Today, agencies are flooded with anonymous and automated FOI requests. One asked for 20 years of government desktop wallpapers.
Another one wanted contact details of a rock star. We're fixing that, not to reduce openness but to stop nonsense clogging the system. Last year, agencies processed 43,000 requests and finalised 39,000.
That's over a million hours devoted to transparency. This government has answered more questions on notice and produced more documents than any government in our history. There have been nearly 70,000 Senate estimates questions—double what the Liberals ever faced—and we've answered 98 per cent of them.
Meanwhile, the opposition's own record looks like a heavily redacted PDF—lots of black bars and not much substance. Let's talk about who, really, has failed the integrity test. Who could forget secret ministries and a prime minister who quietly swore himself into five portfolios without telling his cabinet or even his conscience?
That's not transparency; that's a constitutional costume party. What about the robodebt? They ran an unlawful scheme, ignored 76 warnings that it was illegal and then pretended it was all fine.
When the AAT said stop, they said, 'Delete the email.' The energy price cover-up—they changed the law to delay the release of energy price data until after the 2022 election, hiding the truth like a dodgy flatmate who swears the power bill is in the mail when the lights flicker. The environment report—their own minister sat on a report that said the environment was in a poor and deteriorating state.
Why? Because it might have made voters notice. That wasn't a government of transparency; it was a government of tarpaulins.
If it moved, they covered it. Compare that to Labor's record. We've strengthened whistleblower protections.
We're consulting on a whistleblower ombudsman, and we've reformed political donation laws to limit big money's grip on democracy. We've restored merit based appointments—no more handing out board seats like consolation prizes for failed preselectors. When things go wrong, we don't bury them; we fix them.
The Bell inquiry wasn't shelved; it was implemented. That's accountability, not avoidance. When the opposition get up here and preach about spin and secrecy, Australians might recall—who hid the energy prices?
Who silenced the watchdogs? Who turned public service into private property? Integrity isn't optional; it's the foundation of trust.
We're rebuilding what they tore down. We're rebuilding it with sunlight, not spin. The coalition's idea of transparency was a blackout curtain.
The Albanese Labor government's idea is daylight, and, after what we inherited, that's not just good government; it's a public cleansing. That is what we need—trust in institutions, faith in democracy and keeping integrity so that our institutions respond to public need, public data and transparency. We are restoring that after a decade of cover-ups, a lack of sunlight and a lack of democratic process.
The Albanese government is investing in our democratic institutions to improve transparency for Australians.