DOCUMENTS

Senator SCARR (Queensland) (11:09): Acting Deputy President Grogan, and I will, first, congratulate you on your contribution to this debate, before you took the chair. I'd just like to explain about the documents we're seeking. Just to explain to everyone who's watching this debate, the government doesn't have a majority in the Senate—so the coalition, with the crossbench, including the Greens, called for the government to produce information modelling to the Senate.

A majority of the Senate, representing a majority of the Australian people, asked the government to produce certain information. That information relates to the modelling the government produced based on which it introduced the first-home-buyer scheme and based on which it asserted that the introduction of that scheme would only increase housing prices by 0.6 per cent over six years.

That didn't make sense to the coalition, to the crossbench or to a range of experts in relation to economics and property prices. It didn't make sense that the introduction of this scheme would only have a 0.6 per cent increase impact on home prices, so we asked for the modelling: 'How did you come up with that figure?' In response, the government has produced a few pages where the vast majority of each page is blanked out—'redacted'; that's the term of art.

Why did we want that information? We wanted that information because the government said housing prices would only increase in that segment of the market by 0.6 per cent. But the actual statistics tell us that, in that segment of the market for first home buyers, prices increased by 6.7 per cent in six months, compared to the 0.6 per cent over six years that the government asserted.

And now the government's refusing to provide us the modelling. Why? Because no doubt the modelling will demonstrate, if they were to produce it, the weak foundation upon which the government asserted the 0.6 per cent figure over six years.

We have a situation here where a majority of the Australian Senate, representing a majority of the Australian people, is asking for certain information to be produced to assist it to hold the government to account and to discharge its role as a house of review—and the government refuses. That's the situation we have here today. And it isn't the first time.

As Senator Bragg said, the Centre for Public Integrity—a nonpartisan organisation that doesn't involve politics, and I'll quote their mandate: The Centre for Public Integrity is an independent research institute dedicated to restoring integrity to the foundations of Australia's democracy. They issued a report card on the Albanese Labor government. This is what they said about transparency—exactly what we're talking about today.

They said the Labor government was 'leaning into a culture of secrecy'. We see that culture of secrecy when we see this information produced to the Senate, which is all redacted and blanked out. We can't see the data which has been blanked out.

Why? If you've got nothing to hide, why don't you provide the documents not to us but, through us, to the Australian people? If you've got nothing to hide, why not produce the documents?

The government asserts cabinet-in-confidence. We're not asking for the minutes of the discussions that occurred between the ministers around the cabinet table; we respect that confidence. We're not looking for that discussion.

Cabinet ministers need to have the ability to discuss openly and, hopefully, vigorously in relation to proposals that come before cabinet. We're asking for the foundational modelling based upon which the government said, in the public sphere, that house prices would only go up by 0.6 per cent—yet the data tells us they have gone up 6.7 per cent in six months.

This is a question of integrity. It's a question of transparency. It's a question of respect for a majority of the Senate, representing all parties across the chamber.

The government has shown disrespect for the Senate, and, through that, disrespect to the Australian people. Question agreed to.