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Transcripts
December 4, 2025
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The voice you hear asking the questions there is Senator James Paterson, the Shadow Minister for Public Service, Shadow Minister for Finance and Shadow Minister for Government Services. James, look, your first instinct is to laugh at that, but this is serious business.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Exactly right, Stephen. I nearly did laugh, but then I remembered that Dr Gordon De Brouwer, who was answering my questions, is the head of the Australian Public Service Commission. That is the body which is charged with enforcing standards and setting rules for public servants in how they should conduct themselves ethically and consistent with the law, and he appeared to be endorsing a practice of breaking the law by failing to keep records of advice provided to government, and I was flabbergasted that he didn't see a problem with that until I confronted him with it.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: So, reading between the lines here, what he's suggesting is that public servants will put a formal briefing document to a Minister, but then on the post-it note write what they really think, which might be contrary to the actual advice.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: And the worst part of that is he was answering questions from my colleague David Pocock, who was challenging him on the government's proposed freedom of information reforms, which are designed to make it easier for public servants to provide advice without it being released to the public. And he was justifying these new laws, which will increase secrecy and reduce transparency, by saying, well, there are public servants who are already engaging in these practices by losing records that they're making. Now that is a transparent breach of the law. The APSC should have zero tolerance for it, and I am alarmed that Gordon De Brouwer says he's observed public servants doing this in his career, and he didn't seem troubled by it.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But having said that, and well, a couple of things. I pointed out when I spoke to David Pocock yesterday about his exchange with the boss of NEMA about taking on notice a question about why you haven't answered a question on notice. And I thought, well, I mean, that's extraordinary in and of itself. But I made the point then that we're talking about people here who are being paid more than their bosses, the Ministers. But in the case of Gordon De Brouwer, I just want to play another grab from his boss, the Minister for the Public Service, Katie Gallagher.
[CLIP]
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Now, James, is there any wonder that the APS think they can get away with this when their boss wants to play semantics on the difference between an email, a letter, correspondence, documents and all words that mean the same thing to the average person?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I think this is a particularly contemptuous display by Senator Katy Gallagher towards transparency and openness. I've been seeking a letter that was sent to Ministers or department heads demanding that they make savings in the lead up to the mid year economic fiscal update at the end of this year. And Katy Gallagher told me, as you heard just then, that there is no letter. It turns out there was a letter. It's just that it was attached to an email, and it came from the acting Prime Minister, not from her. And her office and her position was that that didn't need to be released because I didn't ask for the right person who wrote the letter. I mean, no wonder voters are so cynical about politicians and government. And I think the Albanese government is running a real risk here. They promised that they'd be transparent, they promised they'd be open, they promised they'd be accountable, but they're being anything but, and particularly for the Minister for the Public Service, particularly for a Senator from the ACT, Katy Gallagher, should do much better.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But I mean this is just a pattern though, because I talked earlier this morning about Anika Wells and her hundred thousand dollars worth of flights to New York, where she says to the journalist asking the question, The only reason you know the answer to that is because we're being transparent, but I'm not going to give you any details.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: I mean, it's like she felt she was doing the public a favour by telling them how much of their own money she's spending. The government is required to disclose that. They're not being generous by disclosing it, they're required to.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The frightening thing is that obviously the 5% cuts are necessary because the government has finally woken up to the fact that government spending is out of control. And yesterday's national account figures really highlight that with GDP growing as slowly as it ever has.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: That's right. The GDP growth figures are anemic. They're very discouraging. Jim Chalmers is out there declaring mission accomplished, but I don't think any Australian feels like that, nor do most economists. I mean, the Reserve Bank Governor and the Reserve Bank has said that we're running up to the limits of the economy, even at just 2% growth, which is very low growth, and that's generating inflation. That's a disaster for our economy. If we can only grow at 2% without causing inflation, then Australians are going to be much poorer than they otherwise should be.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Yeah, it is absolutely frightening. And then on top of that, under questioning in estimates, Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank Governor, admitted that these higher fiscal deficits and the state of our economy is going to mean higher interest rates, which you know is going to kill some Aussies.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, that's exactly right. I mean government spending is at forty year highs under this government as a proportion of the economy. And as a result of that, inflation and interest rates are higher than they need to be. That's an argument we've been making for months. But the Reserve Bank Governor agreed with me yesterday when I put that to her. She said that all else being equal, we will have a higher interest rates if the government spending is higher and deficits are larger. And we're heading for a $42 billion budget deficit this year.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It is frightening. Now I want to touch on prior to you taking over your current shadow portfolios. You were the shadow minister for home affairs. We've now had it revealed that Tony Burke, the Home Affairs Minister, despite all of his protestations, despite denials from the Prime Minister, had secret meetings involved in saving the children of these so-called ISIS brides. And a document that's been revealed says that he deliberately told his staff, I don't want this in the media.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: That's exactly right, Stephen. And these documents have become public, actually as a result of questions that I previously asked because we had heard there was this strange meeting between the Minister for Home Affairs and this charity which advocates for bringing ISIS members home to our country and that a departmental official was asked to leave the room so that they could have a secret discussion. Now the meeting notes are damning enough on their own as it is. They confirm that Tony Burke gave a green light for these ISIS members to come home to our country, that their passports would be provided, that they would be given assistance when they got home, and that the government would put no blockages in their way. But we don't even know what happened in this secret part of the meeting after the public service person was asked to leave. So what did Tony Burke want to keep secret from even his own department in this conversation?
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It is frightening that particularly given that Tony Burke and, as I say, the Prime Minister have denied this all the way through, denied whether they had any hand in repatriating these ISIS brides, denying that they had meetings with them, etcetera. I guess the biggest difficulty for you as an opposition here is that you don't get to prosecute this until February now.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, that's right. I think frankly if the Parliament were sitting this week, Tony Burke would be under very serious pressure. And I'm sure that's why these questions I asked in October have only been provided this week, after the Parliament has risen. It's very consistent with the cynical approach that this government takes, trying to avoid scrutiny, trying to avoid transparency. And frankly, I think the Australian public should hold them to account for it, and we will.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Do we need a whole overhaul of firstly standing orders when it comes to question time, but also Senate estimates, because far too often we have senior officials say, I'm going to take that on notice and as we saw this week, come back and say, Well, I'm going to take on notice the fact that I haven't answered the question that I took on notice.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Honestly, Rob Sitch and the Utopia team at the ABC couldn't have scripted something so absurd and ludicrous. They would think that that was too implausible. But you know, I upload a lot of the content I ask in Senate Estimates on my YouTube channel and other social media channels. And the most common comment and feedback I get from the public is “these people are paid a lot of money. How come they can't answer these questions? Why do they have to take everything on notice?” And they are increasingly taking questions on notice, and I think it's not because they can't answer the questions, it's because they don't want to answer the questions, because they're politically uncomfortable for the government.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I just want to briefly touch on one other thing before I let you go. And again, questioning that you posed to DPS in estimates about the Greens’ new party room. Now I've been in the government party room, I've been in the joint Coalition party room. They're just basically big rooms with a bunch of chairs in them. How is the Greens party room costing $1.6 million to renovate?
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Well, I thought it was bad enough when we learned a few months ago that Labor had spent $886,000 on renovating just one room in Parliament House. But it emerged this week, as you say, in fact, it costs $1.6 million to renovate this one room in Parliament House. Now, as far as I can tell, this is a pretty standard room in Parliament House. It's no different to any other room in Parliament House. You can build a family home for four to five hundred thousand dollars with, you know, three bedrooms and a garage and, you know, multiple bathrooms. You know, none of this exists in this party room and yet, you know, Labor thinks it's appropriate to spend taxpayers' money on that.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: And I spent a bit of time at Parliament House. It's fairly well maintained. To spend $1.6 million renovating one room, when you talk about the pub test, this certainly doesn't pass.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: It doesn't and no good answers were provided when I asked questions to the Department of Parliamentary Service this week about why it costs so much money on just a single room, other than Parliament House is a special building and we have to adhere to design standards of the building. Sure, all of that is true, but none of it justifies spending three to four times as much as you would spend building a brand new home on renovating a single room.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Extraordinary. James, I appreciate your time this morning.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thanks, Stephen.
ENDS