DOCUMENTS

Senator PATERSON (Victoria) (11:28): I have enjoyed every contribution across the chamber in this debate, but I particularly enjoyed that last contribution from Senator Sheldon, especially the last 60 seconds. Irony is clearly lost on Senator Sheldon, because he concluded his contribution, angrily pointing his finger across the chamber, by saying we should spend less time pointing fingers at each other and examine the conduct of our own parties.

Not once in his five-minute contribution on this debate did Senator Sheldon in any way reflect on the conduct of his own party, of his own government or of his own prime minister. Not once did he seek to hold himself and his colleagues to the standards he and other Labor colleagues have demanded of this side of the chamber, including when we were in government.

There is no more boring accusation a politician can make to another politician than hypocrisy, but, if you're going to come in here and accuse other people of hypocrisy and accuse them of not living up to their standards, at least have the decency to reflect on your own. That is obviously something Senator Sheldon and all of his colleagues are incapable of doing.

I particularly enjoyed the irony of him attacking Senator McKenzie for her alleged past failure to make a disclosure for an organisation that received a grant when the central question in this debate is the Prime Minister's failure to disclose a membership of an organisation that received a grant of public money under his watch as Prime Minister. If you're going to come in here and accuse others of doing something that your own boss is doing, at least have some plausible defence or cover before throwing that accusation at others.

The truth is that Senator Sheldon and other Labor senators who have contributed to this debate have had nothing meaningful to say in the defence of the government's conduct because there is no defence for it. This is public money which has been found by independent groups, like the Centre for Public Integrity, to have been used for a political purpose in a non-transparent process.

That's what the government did. That is what the government spent years railing against when they were the opposition, when they were on this side of the chamber. They said that they would never do this, and they are in government, and they've now done it.

To top it all off, they're not even allowing this chamber to do its job of scrutinising the decisions and expenditure of public money by refusing to cooperate with an order for the production of documents. That is the problem here. If you think your conduct is above board, if you think your conduct is defensible and if you think what you have done is right, why won't you release the documents?

Why won't you allow them to be scrutinised by the Senate, by the media, by the public and by independent groups? The truth is we know that they know that this would not pass any public test. This would not survive public scrutiny, and so they will do everything they can to deny the public and the taxpayers, who funded these grants and the opportunity to understand how these decisions were made, who they were made by and when they were made.

We all know, with ministers and departments rushing around to assure everyone that it wasn't them that made the decision and that it was somebody else, that there's something suss going on here, that the decisions were probably made in the PMO by a staffer, instructed by the Prime Minister, to suit Labor's political interests, and that is what they are afraid will be exposed if they comply with the Senate's order to produce documents.

The truth is there is a stench of corruption around Labor nationally and none more so than in my home state of Victoria. It is very clear we have a government there that knowingly willingly handed $15 billion of taxpayers money to the CFMEU, organised crime and bikies. They did nothing after they were warned that it was happening.

They allowed it to go on for two years. Let's not forget that, among those $15 billion was federal taxpayers money too that this government allowed to be handed over to organised crime, bikies and the CFMEU, despite media reports drawing attention to this and despite whistleblowers bringing forward complaints. This is a government which is willing to tolerate corruption when it suits its political interests.

When their friends benefit and when they benefit, they're happy to see public money to go to improper purposes, and that will be the judgement of Victorians on 28 November, as it will one day be the judgement on this government to. Question agreed to.