In Senate Question Time today, the Albanese Labor Government has used an outrageous display of disrespect to disrupt the Opposition and crossbench’s transparency measures, which sought to hold the Government to account for its entrenched secrecy.
Working with Senator David Pocock and the crossbench, the Coalition attempted to hold the Government to account for refusing to comply with Senate orders and continually hiding important documents from the Parliament and the Public.
To force Labor to respect the Senate’s role as a House of Review on behalf of the Australian people, we have required the Government to answer five additional questions during Question Time each day until it complies with outstanding orders for documents.
These additional questions have been specifically allocated to non-government Senators in response to Labor’s serious lack of transparency and accountability.
The Government did not lose any questions as a result of this measure and were able to ask three questions to their own Ministers as is standard practice.
However, the Government’s tantrum-style performance in Question Time today interrupted the Coalition and crossbench’s additional questions by suspending the Senate multiple times.
In doing so, the Albanese Government has once again proved that it is completely unwilling to be accountable to the Parliament and the Australian people.
The Coalition will not be intimidated by Labor’s embarrassing and childish retaliation tactics, which only resulted in the derailing of the important work of the Senate.
Australians deserve a government that operates with transparency and accountability.
We will continue holding Labor to account until they deliver the openness they promised.
ENDS
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