Today in Parliament, Abigail contributed to a matter of public importance, criticising the Minns Labor Government for its lack of transparency, evasive tactics and insufficient answers during parliamentary inquiries, and called for a shift in attitude to restore public trust through proper accountability and openness.

Abigail said:

I contribute to debate on this matter of public importance and thank the mover for bringing it, and I am glad of it. Although it was moved by Ms Sue Higginson, it is reflective of a sentiment that goes across the entire crossbench, as well as throughout the Opposition, and I think we are all glad to say what we think on the current Government's record of integrity and transparency. It is always interesting for me, a bit of a nerd, to look in the dictionary for definitions of these terms.

"Transparency" was a particularly interesting one. In the Oxford dictionary, transparency is defined as the quality of being easy to perceive or detect and the quality of allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen. That goes to the heart of what is particularly problematic with the Minns Labor Government, and I will give an example. Minns himself, in the budget estimates session with the Premier, would be—

The Hon. Greg Donnelly (Labor): "The Premier".

Ms Abigail Boyd: I do not mean that as a mark of disrespect. It is how people on the street would speak. We do not tend to speak like that about people, but that is fine. The Premier in his estimates sessions has a pattern of not answering questions. He has a bit of a routine. First of all he pretends not to understand the question. He will try to slow things down by demanding to see evidence of every aspect of the question before answering. For example, when I asked him a couple of budget estimates sessions ago about why he had promised that, if the greyhound industry had not been reformed within two years, he would then seek to shut it down, he demanded to see a transcript of him actually having said that, even though, of course, he had. We did have the evidence, but that slowed things down to such an extent that there was an inability to ask further questions. That is a classic example of not being able to be perceived or seen because you are putting up these obstacles of not even acknowledging the question to begin with.

Then, when the question is actually perceived, he gives an answer that is totally unrelated to the question, often grandstanding about something completely different, again doing everything to not answer the question. The final line of defence from being perceived or seen or actually providing the information being requested is to attack the questioner. In the case of The Greens, when I asked a question about workers compensation amendments, which people in this State are interested in, the answer I got was, "Greens' talking points, Greens' talking points", and he wanted to school me on the workers compensation system generally, rather than answer a specific question.

I point this out as an example that is the norm for how many, though not all—#NotAllLabor—Ministers in the Labor Party are responding to questions. We see it with answers given to written questions. We often ask a question and the answer that comes back is not at all answering the question. We will ask something like, "How many people have X, Y, Z?" The answer comes back with, "The Government is always keen to ensure" and then something completely unrelated. It does not answer the question. This is not a one-off. This is just constant with many different Ministers. Talking about transparency, I raised it here when I was talking about the use of non‑disclosure agreements. I asked how many non-disclosure agreements had been signed, and I had specific questions of every Minister, and what came back was a stock response saying that the Government occasionally uses non-disclosure agreements, without answering the questions I had asked. I asked some subsequent questions and got some better answers back from some of the departments but not from all.

But that is evidence of what seems to be a systemic inability to expose the Government to actually being perceived, which is what we are talking about when talking about transparency. Others have said that this party was elected on promising—or, one at least, in the process of being elected, that promised—to be an accountable and transparent government. From the perspective of the crossbench, I am not alone in thinking that this Government is actually less transparent and accountable than the one before it, and that one was not known for its transparency and accountability. So, if I were the Labor Government, I would take that seriously.

The Premier this week was in the other place, going on about the inquiry that was being established into the misleading statements around the caravan event. Rather than accepting that that happens in a parliament of accountability over good governance, he was saying that the Coalition is in bed with The Greens. The suggestion was that it is a political attack and that it is somehow untoward for parties who are not in government to come together to hold the government of the day accountable, but that is what Parliament is for. We are not a unicameral system. We have two Houses in this State. In the upper House we have representatives from a broad variety of parties who represent a broad demographic of people with different interests and of political persuasions. It is our job to hold the government of the day to account.

That brings me to another reflection on what is happening here. I feel that the Labor Party needs to grow up from being a political party to being a government. We are still seeing this Sussex Street politics, or even student politics, in response to criticisms of government agencies or of the way that departments are being run. Again, that is not by all Ministers. There are a lot of good Ministers in the upper House who do not see it in that way. But the number of times that we get criticism of our political motives when we are doing something to hold government departments to account shows a disturbing trend. There is the Labor Party, and then there is the Labor Party as the Government. Once a party is in the Executive, it is accountable to the Parliament not just for its actions but for the actions of the departments that it is responsible for. That is, perhaps, the evolution that needs to occur in the Labor Party for it to become the political leader that we need it to be in this moment.

We have listed all of the things we have all seen that lead us to conclude that this is a particularly non‑transparent set of Ministers, particularly in the senior leadership of this Government. There needs to be an attitude shift. At a time when people's faith in democracy is so low, when people are so sick of politicians playing silly games and not answering questions or being direct, what this Labor Government is doing is particularly dangerous and damaging to democracy. The Greens take it incredibly seriously. This is not about having a go at Labor. We say it a lot, and I will say it again: I do not want to see the Coalition in government again. I would rather have a Labor Government than a Coalition Government, but that does not mean we just accept whatever this Labor Government dishes out. At the moment it is not performing. It is not allowing itself to be perceived and judged in the way it should be and the way that a responsible government should.

Another obstacle that the Government puts up—I talked before of it not being open or wanting to answer our questions during the budget estimates process—is all of that attitude. That is also evident when bills are rushed through at the last minute. Particularly nasty ramifications resulted from the bills we were forced to rush through in the last sitting day of February. Members now know that we were pretty much collectively misled about a lot of different things leading up to that. But this happens all the time, and it is a tactic. We have called it out for the past two years. When the Government brings bills to this place and rushes them through in one day or in one week, that is an obstacle to transparency. That means we do not get to properly do our job of being able to perceive what is happening in government. If the Government wants to be transparent, it needs to stop that practice.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

20 March 2025