(Image: Mitchell Squire/Private Media)

Keeping a lid on information inside the Morrison government is a full-time job. Just ask Josh Frydenberg. Last week, as well as managing the country’s finances, the treasurer was busy suppressing the names of the thousands of large corporations that pocketed JobKeeper handouts while increasing their revenue.

Crikey detailed the lengths he went to keep the list of JobKeeper rorters under wraps. It’s important to remember there is no legal or ethical reason why the government cannot release the details of any company that receives public money. Public money is always accounted for — and this is $13 billion. 

But this didn’t stop Frydenberg from intervening in a Senate motion that would force the tax commissioner to hand over company names which has put the commissioner in the “unprecedented situation” of facing jail time for contempt of parliament if he disobeys the Senate’s request. 

It’s just one of the many attempts by the Morrison government to protect and conceal information that should be in the public realm.

National cabinet minutes

The prime minister has done everything he can to keep the so-called national cabinet under lock and key. First this involved hiring lawyers to take on a battle in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) to produce arguments about how the cabinet — made up of premiers from different political parties — was a cabinet under Australian law.

Federal Court Justice Richard White ruled it wasn’t, and therefore not entitled to cabinet confidentiality.

But if you can’t beat the law, just change it. Last week the government introduced a bill to Parliament that would prevent information discussed at national cabinet from being released, even under a freedom of information request.

If passed, the act would mean that information shared in the national cabinet wouldn’t even be released if the information was in the public interest.

The move has infuriated crossbench Senator Rex Patrick, who took the government to the AAT over the issue, and has now pulled out of negotiations with the government on an overhaul of environmental laws.

Brittany Higgins

We still do not know who knew what inside the prime minister’s office about the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins. 

Last week the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, suspended his inquiry for a second time. Gaetjens said he had put his investigation on hold due to concerns raised by the ACT’s Director of Public Prosecutions that it could “prejudice criminal proceedings now on foot”.

Initially he paused his inquiry in March after police advised him it might interfere with their investigation, but then told Senate estimates he resumed the work in May after police gave him the all clear. It was expected to be finished within weeks before this latest development. 

Sports rorts 

The other report that has gone missing in Gaetjens’ hands is the one about the sports rorts scandal. It was initially buried by the PM&C secretary, despite a summary finding there were “significant shortcomings” in the way former sports minister Bridget McKenzie decided on the grants. 

Media outlets and other parties have since applied for access to the report under FOI laws, but have been rebuffed. They’ve taken their requests to the office of the Australian Information Commissioner, where the government has argued the report is covered by cabinet-in-confidence, and therefore exempt from the FOI Act. 

Role of private consultants in vaccine rollout

Don’t even bother trying to find out what role private consultants have played in the government’s COVID-19 recovery efforts, and in particular its botched vaccine rollout. It doesn’t matter that the consultants have made millions under all manner of contracts — the answer you’ll invariably get is that the deal is “commercial in confidence”. Because of AusTender we know the total figures of various contracts, but have very little insight into what each contract has involved. 

Some companies have even managed to avoid being listed on the AusTender website, with an $11 million vaccine contract to PwC “mistakenly” left off the transparency register by the Health Department. It’s up there now but we’re still none the wiser about what exactly PwC was actually being paid to do.

A national integrity commission

Last week the government nixed an effort to debate a bill to create a national integrity commission that would be much stronger than the government’s proposed toothless one. 

Independent MP Helen Haines moved to suspend standing orders on Tuesday to force a debate over the integrity body, but the government voted it down. 

It’s now been 1000 days since Morrison promised to create a federal corruption watchdog in the lead-up to the 2019 election. The Haines bill was first introduced in October last year.