{"id":342024,"date":"2025-10-30T01:22:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342024\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T01:22:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T01:22:16","slug":"senators-claim-labor-is-threatening-punishment-after-chamber-stunt-on-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/342024\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators claim Labor is threatening punishment after chamber stunt on transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coalition and crossbench MPs say they are being threatened with punishment after a stunt in the Senate yesterday where they teamed up to pressure the government on transparency.<\/p>\n

The Coalition, Greens and crossbench teamed up yesterday afternoon to back a motion led by independent Senator David Pocock that gave them an additional five questions at Question Time each day until a key transparency report was released.<\/p>\n

A report on government appointments to public boards, dubbed an investigation into “jobs for mates”, was meant to be released in late 2023 \u2014 but it remains secret.<\/p>\n

Non-government senators voted yesterday to pressure the government to release the report, extending Question Time each day in their favour until that was done.<\/p>\n

This morning Coalition frontbencher James Paterson said it was now being threatened with retribution over the stunt.<\/p>\n

“We’ve seen an utterly extraordinary and petulant response from the Albanese government today,” Senator Paterson said.<\/p>\n

“They’re saying they’re going to strip deputy chair committee positions from the Opposition in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

“That’s an extraordinary response, and not one that a democratic government should engage in.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Decisions over lower house committee positions, which can attract a salary bump of several thousand dollars for MPs, rest with house leader Tony Burke.<\/p>\n

The federal government has claimed the report remains under cabinet consideration.<\/p>\n

Senator Pocock said that “excuse” was not good enough.<\/p>\n

“The grounds they are trying to claim of cabinet in confidence \u2026 doesn’t stack up,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Jobs for mates is a real problem in this place and we’ve even seen that over the last couple of years.<\/p>\n

“We’re ratcheting up the pressure until they release it.”<\/p>\n

Labor eats into debate time with its own purported stunt<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in the Senate chamber this morning, senators erupted again after their limited “private senators” time was eaten into by the government calling quorum three times.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Labor called quorum three times while Senator Hume attempted to speak. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n

Senator Jane Hume, whose speech was repeatedly interrupted by calls for quorum, claimed in the chamber that Labor senators were leaving the Senate in order to force a quorum call, taking time out for debate.<\/p>\n

“Not only are they hiding, they are playing games in the chamber,” Senator Hume said.<\/p>\n

“Labor are refusing to produce a document that we have been requesting to see for two years \u2026 which ironically is a review into jobs for mates.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The drama is the latest in a series of criticisms of the federal government’s commitment to transparency.<\/p>\n

Its recent attempts to reform freedom of information laws were widely panned, and the government was criticised for cutting MP staffing allocations at the beginning of this term.<\/p>\n

The Centre for Public Integrity recently named this government one of the least transparent in decades.<\/p>\n

The centre concluded that six months into its second term, the Albanese government was “leaning into a culture of secrecy”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coalition and crossbench MPs say they are being threatened with punishment after a stunt in the Senate yesterday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":342025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,168401,50,16854,143486,168403,168402],"class_list":{"0":"post-342024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-jobs-for-mates","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-senate","12":"tag-stunt","13":"tag-transparency-report","14":"tag-withheld-report"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115460503215359196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}