Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 3:09:40 to 3:14:12
Debate arises over whether the government should have shared the Ombudsman's draft report with the Senate during legislative negotiations to ensure transparency in deliberations.
Topics: Health, Integrity
Speakers: Senator The Hon Anne Ruston, Mr Blair Comley
Uh thank you very much. Um in um response to recommendation one, well, in your response to the Ombudsman um Mr. Comley on the 2nd of November, which was 13 days before the Senate voted on the escalation pathway or Schedule 4 of the Amendment to the bill.
2nd of November you said.
Sorry, if I said November, I misspoke 2nd of October. Given 2nd November hasn't come yet. During the bill, we had a very short committee with the Department. Given that you said that you sought the advice of the Ombudsman to be able to provide this the draft recommendations to the ministers throughout the period of it being in draft format. At any time did you or the Minister's officers seek an agreement from the Ombudsman as to whether it would be appropriate given the nature of the amendment in Schedule 4 to that bill to at least share in part the relevant recommendations of the Ombudsman's report with the people that were about to vote on this bill?
So Senator, I just want to be clear. I think I corrected my evidence to say that I originally said we needed the approval of the Ombudsman to put it to the Minister's.
No, but you said that you would that you have to be.
But as a matter of courtesy, we advised the Ombudsman.
Did you seek to have the same courtesy extended to those people who were at the table debating legislation? Did you not did you ever seek to provide a level of transparency around this particular issue during those negotiations, given that particularly recommendation one and recommendation four particularly go to the process that surrounded Schedule 4 amendment to the age care aberrant tourist Rad Islander Commissioner Bill?
No, we didn't, Senator, and it was because it was a draft Ombudsman's report.
Well, so it was when you gave it to the Minister.
Well, that was for information of the Minister, but the information that was a draft report, the Ombudsman and in the same way the ANAO, when they have these reports, provide to the relevant agency a document to allow them to provide any comment, including for factual inaccuracies, it is not common at all for that to go outside government.
No, and I'm not suggesting that normally would be common to go outside of government, but in before us at the Senate, we had an inquiry and a bill and an amendment to a bill that went to the very nature of the concerns that were raised by the Ombudsman in that draft report report. And so at no time you're telling me, did you think that the information that was contained in that report, particularly recommendations one and four, were relevant to the extent that the Senate should have been aware of them before they were asked to vote on something when only a matter of minutes later the Ombudsman's report dropped and now we find out that something that was very relevant was kept from the Senate. So kept from the very workings of the institution of this parliament. So you're telling me you never thought to even seek to have that information made available to us.
Until the report was finalised, I think the usual practice and both for Ombudsman and for A reports is they are not made public.
So you sought to assist the Ombudsman, but at no time did you think to assist the Parliament in its transparency of deliberations about something that was before it?
Well, I think it's very well established practice that when you're dealing with a body like the Ombudsman or the ANAO, you need to deal with them and certainly the process is not that you would make that public.