Senate showdown looms after Watt labels Pocock revolt against government secrecy a ‘dummy spit’ | Australian politics

Labor could remove Coalition members from parliamentary committees as punishment after the government lost control of the Senate on Wednesday in a complicated crackdown on transparency, with David Pocock leading a push to significantly extend question period and force ministers to answer more questions.

A major showdown is looming after the coalition, the Greens and parliament challenged the government in the upper house to force changes to long-standing conventions and rules; It’s a rare move that Labor Minister Murray Watt described as a “fake spit”.

Independent ACT senator Pocock led a rebellion against government secrecy this week to punish Labor for sitting on a key report into the government’s board appointments. The inquiry, set up by former civil service commissioner Lynelle Briggs, reached chancellor Katy Gallagher two years ago, but the government has consistently blocked its publication, claiming it was subject to cabinet and confidentiality issues.

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Angered by the delay, Pocock moved on Wednesday afternoon to amend the Senate’s standing orders and add extra questions to the daily question period until the report is released; This gave non-government senators the chance to ask more questions.

Non-government members in the Senate and House of Representatives are putting increasing pressure on Labor on transparency and confidentiality issues. In July, the Center for Public Integrity accused Labor of undermining the principles of freedom of information, claiming the Albanian government had a worse record than the Coalition under Scott Morrison on producing documents for public scrutiny.

Gallagher said the Briggs report would be released “when the job is done” but disputed Pocock’s actions, claiming senators were “abusing” Senate orders to collect an “unreasonable” amount of government documents.

He claimed that the Keating government received 53 orders from the Senate to produce documents, while the current government received 100 orders in the last weeks alone and 336 orders in the last term of the government.

“Some of them ran into thousands and thousands of pages in scope, and some had to be complied with within time frames that were absolutely unreasonable,” Gallagher said.

Pocock had previously told the Senate: “What we get back are no documents or just blacked out pages… I hope we can actually force the government to comply with the Senate.”

Over the government’s objections, the Coalition, Greens and crossbench backed Pocock’s motion to extend Senate question time by around half an hour, give more questions to non-government senators and limit the number of questions Labor members can ask of their own side.

The government was furious about the developments; Senior sources claimed Pocock’s move, backed by the Coalition, undermined decades of parliamentary hearings and traditions about how question time works. Guardian Australia understands the government may want to retaliate against the Coalition for supporting Pocock’s motion; This may include removing Coalition members from vice-chair positions on committees.

Watt, a senior minister in the Senate, harshly criticized Pocock’s move.

“What David Pocock did yesterday, with the support of the Coalition and the Greens, was to subvert decades of Senate tradition and procedures in order to seize power,” Watt said.

“I think he needs to reflect on his actions. I mean, David Pocock was always here lecturing us about the importance of Senate tradition and the importance of the Senate convention, and now he’s gone and thrown the toys out.”

The prime minister’s office, the offices of Senate leader Katy Gallagher and House leader Tony Burke also declined to comment.

The Liberals believed the threat of procedural reprisals still remained Thursday morning, but the government had so far not announced any response. Liberal senator James Paterson criticized the government for what he called “authoritarian” and “completely petty” behavior.

“They are proposing to abolish the opposition’s deputy speaker positions in the House of Representatives in return for having to answer extra questions in parliament. This is an extremely cranky response from the government and reflects very badly on them,” he told Sky News.

Pocock said the Senate was just “doing its job under the constitution.”

“Friendly affairs are a real problem here, and we’ve seen that even in the last few years,” he told reporters on Thursday.

“The government refuses to release a report they say will be made public and they have no reason to hide it, and we have been trying to get this information from them for a long time and increasing the pressure until they release it.”