Spurning the Black Rod. Labor’s transparency dummy spit

Only the nerds in Parliament noticed. such a cow Rex Patrick He noticed and reported Labor spitting a transparency dummy on the Senate floor.

Official Business

‘Official Business’ is dealt with at around 3.30pm on each Senate session day (except Thursdays, which occur at 11.45am). This includes boring issues such as obtaining approval for senators’ absence, as well as more interesting issues such as directing the Government to submit documents to the Senate and referring matters to Senate Committees.

The Order’s motions to produce the documents (OPDs) may provide clues as to what senators are interested in from an oversight perspective. Committee directions are often signals of where non-government senators want to take things on the political map.

By way of example, some Committee recommendations to be voted on on March 2 include an inquiry into ‘The reasons behind the latest unprecedented cost explosions in the Government’s budget and its impact on inflation and interest rates’ by (National Senator Matt Canavan) and an inquiry into ‘The impact of Labour’s rushed firearms legislation on legal production and Australia’s sovereign defense capability’ by (One Nation Senator Sean Bell).

A formal job normally takes about 30 minutes.

On Wednesday, February 4, this took three hours because the Government had a fake spit.

The power of transparency for centuries

The ability of Parliament to obtain documents from the Government dates back 200 years. The first edition of the ‘Laws, privileges, proceedings, and agreements respecting the use of Parliament’, dated 1844, sets out the power to do this.

In the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords have been enforcing their orders regarding production recently. Ted Kramer, founder of app developer Six4Three WHO He was visiting London with Facebook-related documents in his bag. An unexpected visit came from the House sergeant.

Media Reports Regarding the Treatment of Ted Kramer

Applicable in Australia

So is the NSW Parliament.

On 1 May 1996 the Legislative Council passed a production order requiring the then NSW Treasurer Michael Egan to submit papers to the Legislative Council.

On 2 May Egan appealed to the Chamber, refusing to comply with the order, and was voted guilty of contempt and ordered to leave the Chamber. He refused. Herald of the Black Rod He was then ordered to escort her to the footpath in Macquarie Street.

Black Rod

Egan initiated litigation in response to his dismissal. The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court (Egan v Willis [1998] HCA 71) where the right of the Parliamentary Assembly to order the production of documents and to treat non-compliance as contempt is confirmed.

Purpose of the Black Bar

US President Woodrow Wilson once spoke of the informational role of the US Congress.

It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently at every business of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is intended to be the eyes and the voice and to embody the wisdom and will of its components. Unless and until Congress uses every means to inform itself of the actions and attitudes of the executive representatives of the government, the country will be helpless to learn how it is served…

Philosopher John Stewart Mill, quoted with approval in the Supreme Court case Egan v Willis, summarized the task this way:

to monitor and control the government: to shine a publicity light on its actions

Power to order production of documents (federally contained in Article 49 of the Australian Constitution.It is necessary for the Parliament to fulfill its oversight function.

fishing exercise

Returning to the Senate on 4 February, the Albanian Government decided that it would seek to amend every proposed production order.

In doing so, he added a complaint to each change stating that.

orders to produce documents are one of the most serious powers of the Senate and should be exercised in cases where other processes have been exhausted rather than on fishing expeditions;

The problem with the statement is that it is completely false and completely disrespectful of the history of power and the place of Parliament in its constitutional role.

There is no authority to suggest that it is a power to be used after all other processes have been exhausted. And the real purpose of the production order is to fish into Government business, especially where the Government does not want the Senate to look.

Here the Albanian Government is arrogantly trying to be the arbiter of investigative matters.

It must be acknowledged that the power to order the production of documents is not a power that a single senator can exercise; The order can only be made by a vote of the majority of the Senate (orders for the production of documents are never issued in the House, since the government always has a majority).

The Senate, not the Government, will decide which documents the government must hand over. If a senator is careless and playing politics, the proposed order may not be carried out.

A strategy for privacy

The Albanian Government, which seems to be interested in transparency as the Albanian opposition, has adopted secrecy since coming to power. They did this in a much more subtle way than the Morrison Government did; Morrison has never promoted transparency as a good thing. While doing this, Albanese is also trying to kill him.

Whistleblowing is a form of transparency; It is a method in which a person who can see all or most of the information from the inside acts on normally confidential information. The Albanian Government began actively prosecuting whistleblowers as part of a campaign to deter whistleblowing.

Freedom of Information is a transparency mechanism; The regime needs to allow citizens to peer behind the dark curtains covering government offices to allow for democratic participation and scrutiny. The Albanian Government has introduced legislation that will make FOI more expensive and difficult to implement and expand exemptions.

FOI amendment bill. Transparency counter-revolution.

A not-so-great investigation

And finally, Parliament, the nation’s great inquiry, is sheltered from sunlight.

Anyone who watches question time will see that questions from non-government MPs are rarely answered.

Readers will recall that the Albanian Government circulated a document providing: Advice to officials on avoiding difficult questions In Senate Estimates.

They are now trying to eliminate orders for document production to complete the trilogy.

We’re attacking democracy and just wasting our time While non-Government senators will hold the line on transparency on 4 February, I think we will have to see whether Labor will continue their secret hunger games on 2 March, when faced with three production orders currently listed on the notice sheet (one for Senator Barbara Pocock, one for Senator Fatima Payman and one for Senator James Paterson).

Rex Patrick: Has the Australian Senate lost its magic?

Rex Patrick is a former South Australian Senator and formerly a submariner in the armed forces. Known as an anti-corruption and transparency warrior, Rex is also known as “Transparency Warrior“