10.2.2026 - Trust in Government скачать в хорошем качестве

10.2.2026 - Trust in Government

Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (12:30): I'd like to talk today about trust and how to build it, particularly trust in government. The ANU Australian Election Study recently found that only one in three Australians believe that people in government can be trusted to do the right thing. That is damning for all of us and something we desperately need to address. Also we're increasingly seeing a majority of Australians having a moderate or high grievance against government, business or the rich. And 64 per cent of Australians worry that government leaders purposely mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations. Finally, only 17 per cent believe that the next generation will be better off. We in this building should be worried about all these statistics. We do have a problem. The Prime Minister, early in his term, said that he did want to improve trust in government. He said, 'I don't expect to make Australians fall in love with question time, but I do want more people to have greater faith in the integrity of our parliament and its representatives.' That's a laudable aim, but my concern is that the government, particularly the Prime Minister, is not taking the steps required to build the trust that we need in institutions. I could use the next eight minutes and a half to have a go at the Prime Minister. But what I'm trying to do, and more interested in doing first, is outlining where I believe that trust can be built—how we can build back. We can complain about the government of the day, or we can actually try to lead by showing where we should develop these areas. There are five key areas that I believe we must work on to increase trust in our government and our institutions. These are around (1) transparency, (2) accountability, (3) strengthening our institutions, (4) delivering what we said we would and, finally, (5) the community and how they can be put back in the heart of government. Let me start with transparency. One of the things that surprised me, coming into parliament, was that the Public Service, or the work they do in the departments, was not accessible to me as a member of the House of Representatives. I'd thought that I would be able to talk to departmental people and see all the reports they write for the government. But no, because the Public Service is there to serve the government, and the government chooses what it releases and what it doesn't. Particularly, it makes that choice through things like the FOI restrictions that are currently placed on the release of documents. So my question is: how can we build transparency so that, as a member of parliament and, frankly, as a citizen you have access to what is going on in government? You can understand what recommendations are being made and what opportunities are being considered. People say that sunshine is the best disinfectant. I believe strongly that if you can increase transparency you can increase trust in government. There are things that the government and parts of this country do already—things like releasing ministerial diaries so that people don't feel that perhaps government are meeting with lobbyists more than they're meeting with citizens. I was speaking to a former leader in one of the states of this country and they said to me that actually releasing ministerial diaries made them aware of how much lobbying was going on by a particular group on a particular issue. We could make sure there's much more transparency about who's sponsoring lobbyists. Those are some of the things that could be really important....