The federal government's glossy blue net zero brochures received a workout at Senate estimates last week. Senators waved them about during hearings, as if doing so might physically shake out some answers about the Coalition's climate policies. Their questions weren't extracting much information from government ministers, so you couldn't blame them for trying something different.
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Here was one telling exchange between Labor senator Katy Gallagher and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham, in the finance and public administration committee. She asked what the Nationals party got out of its secret net zero deal with Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and whether there will be a regional future fund.
Senator Gallagher: "After eight years in government, we've got a brochure, with no modelling, no targets, a lot of marketing, but we're not to know what the cost of the deal with the National party is," she said.
Is the taxpayer-funded deal with the Nationals to remain a secret?, she asked.
"What did the Nats get? Nothing? They got a brochure?"
Senator Birmingham didn't reveal much, saying he wouldn't comment on policy decisions the government "may or may not have taken but not announced".
Senator Gallagher pressed him. When was the brochure printed, if the Nationals only agreed to net zero by 2050 a couple of days earlier? Was she holding a document hot off the presses?
Over in the rural and regional affairs committee, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie - a senior party figure who was one of the most vocal sceptics of a net zero by 2050 target - admitted she had not read the government plan. Read that sentence again, if it helps you believe it. Senator Kristina Keneally could barely contain her incredulity.
There is a line between remaining apolitical, and evading questions to the point of appearing to abet government efforts to hide information.
It's easy to imagine Rob Sitch in Utopia consulting the marketing wiz kid Karsten and Kitty Flanagan's PR guru character about the glossy blue brochure on Sunday night, after the Nationals agreed to net zero. In that world, maybe Karsten came up with "The Australian Way" tag. The reality is, it might well have been Prime Minister Scott Morrison's idea.
In the absence of any real detail from Senate estimates about the process the government followed to form its net zero plan, the modelling and analysis that underpins it, and the contents of the political deal that props it up, we are left to our guesses and imaginations.
Public servants tried steering clear from talk of the government's net zero policies in estimates last week, straining to avoid answering questions that could even be remotely construed as venturing into politics. At times, when they were overly cautious, it was ridiculous. There is a line between remaining apolitical, and evading questions to the point of appearing to abet government efforts to hide information. Public servants often don't get the balance right, and turn themselves unwittingly into political actors. That's ultimately bad for public trust in an apolitical public service.
As Labor senator Nita Green observed in estimates last week, the lack of information from the government means questions about net zero will be based more on speculation.
The kind of belligerent secrecy we've seen from the Coalition has another side effect. In Senate estimates, it leaves audiences looking for signs in apparently small things. Even a wink speaks a thousand words, in the current world of Australian politics. When Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet deputy secretary Stephanie Foster was captured on camera winking during a hearing, there was a stir as observers speculated it was meant for Senator Birmingham. It wasn't really clear from the video who it was directed at.
After initially denying it was even a wink, Ms Foster later conceded it was. She said it was not meant for Senator Birmingham but to acknowledge a colleague who had just come to the table to assist with questioning.
Why are we talking about a small eye movement? Because sometimes in Senate estimates, that's all the information we have to go by.
The government can blame itself for that.
A version of this article first appeared in last week's Public Service newsletter. Subscribe here.
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