A parliamentary report on parliamentary reports was handed down last month. Don’t let your eyes glaze over, it’s actually important.
As politicians return to Canberra this week, community independent MPs have a shopping list of thorny topics for the government they want to talk about. Monique Ryan has a private member’s bill for the Centre for Disease Control to treat gambling harm as a public health issue; Sophie Scamps has a bill seeking to end so-called “jobs for mates”, requiring a “cooling-off period” between working in politics and being appointed to cushy government roles; while Kate Chaney plans to highlight the dozens and dozens of parliamentary committee reports which have been left gathering dust, with the government long overdue in responding to important findings and recommendations.
These things are all linked, the sequencing – of course – not coincidental.
Monday is 978 days since a committee, led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy, called for a phased-in ban on gambling advertising: a report the Labor government is still considering and workshopping but has still not formally responded to (despite freedom of information requests finding a draft response was formulated in 2024 – more on that later).
On jobs for mates, the government refused repeated calls to hand down that report late last year, only relenting in the face of a Senate revolt led by David Pocock who accused it of burying the findings. The author of the report, Lynelle Briggs, criticised “patronage and nepotism” in the system; but Labor was strongly criticised, including by the integrity expert Anthony Whealy KC, for a limp response, which included ignoring Briggs’ calls to overhaul jobs given to politicians and staffers, and instead set up a government framework for appointments.
The parliamentary report on parliamentary reports, meanwhile, found dozens upon dozens of inquiries conducted by committees had received no government response – despite procedures requiring a response within six months.
Chaney said since the Albanese government was elected in 2022 about 50 reports from House committees were still awaiting responses: half had been handed down more than a year ago.
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In the Senate – where the government does not control the numbers and more committees are set up by non-government members, often to probe Labor policies – “more than 150 inquiry reports tabled since the 2022 election have received no government response at all”, Chaney said.
To be fair, this isn’t entirely new. The former Coalition government also had a large slate of old reports it never responded to. We reported on a strange trend in 2024, when Labor – in what could only be seen as a box-ticking exercise – went through dozens of reports still requiring responses, some years old, responding: “given the passage of time since this report was tabled, a substantive Government response is no longer appropriate”.
At the time, government sources told us the new administration was committed to giving responses to all reports. The reports from the House and Senate about the “status of government responses to parliamentary committee reports” show many far newer reports are still awaiting responses.
Additionally, in the Senate especially, Labor sources say the Greens and Coalition seek to set up inquiry processes with an inherently political bent, weaponising the committee process to host public hearings and reports which are critical of government policy.
“The government must be held accountable, to honour the thousands of people who participate in parliamentary inquiries in good faith – the experts, advocates and community members who give their time, share their experiences and trust that their government will take them seriously,” Chaney said in a statement.
It does raise the question of why taxpayer funds are devoted to paying for politicians to host hearings, fly around the country, stay in hotels and call witnesses to Canberra, if the reports end up just sitting on a shelf.
But there is a pattern here. A government coming to power promising orderly processes, transparency and a respect for parliament, has been criticised by integrity campaigners over all three. Reports are delayed, then left waiting for responses. On thorny issues, there can be long silence.
FoIs to the departments of communications and social services, returned to Guardian Australia last week, show at least one “draft government response” to Murphy’s report was in existence as of November 2024. The departments declined our request for that document, however, saying in a decision letter that its release could “prejudice the ongoing deliberative processes” and that “the matter remains under careful consideration by the government”.
The communications minister, Anika Wells, remains working on a response to the complicated issue, crossing over a number of dense and complicated policy and political areas – including income for media companies, viability of sporting codes, long-term business deals, online safety and the policies of social media giants, supports to those experiencing gambling harm, and the right of ordinary punters to place a bet.
It’s not an easy task. But Wells will continue facing just as much pressure from sporting codes and media companies on one side of the debate, as she will from gambling harm advocates and the teal independents on the other.
Finally, staying on FoI, the government’s contentious changes to the freedom of information system will return to the Senate this week. The bill still appears friendless in the upper house.
The new shadow attorney general, Michaelia Cash, told Guardian Australia the Coalition has hardened its resolve against the bill, calling the bill “a direct attack on transparency and on the public’s right to know”.
“The Coalition will oppose this legislation. Freedom of Information is not a courtesy from government, it is a democratic safeguard,” she said.
• Josh Butler is a Guardian Australia political reporter and chief of staff in Canberra
