Officials have been unable to shed light on how two ministers were allowed to alter the parliamentary record after handing down incorrect speeches last week.
Financial Services Minister Jane Hume and Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar revealed the government would be slashing the price of medicines $10 per script – except the policy was scrapped at the last minute.
The two sought to correct Hansard to delete the mention of the policy after it was revealed they had read from an earlier draft of the speech.
Labor seized on the mistake in estimates on Monday, furious the ministers were allowed to delete the blunder from Hansard instead of offering a correction on the floor of parliament.
“Isn’t the appropriate thing to do for (them) to turn up and say, ‘I’m tabling a new speech, I know the speech that I was provided with and has been incorporated into the parliamentary record containing an error in fact,” Senator Wong asked.
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham sought to downplay the error, but conceded it was an “unusual set of circumstances”.
“I think in both cases, clearly, it was an innocent mistake on each of their parts in what information was provided to the houses,” he told the parliamentary hearing.
He added he “assumed” the decision to alter Hansard was made across the two ministers’ offices.
“I would be surprised if there wasn’t discussion, given that there’s no particular reason I would have expected Senator Hume to be aware that she had tabled the wrong speech, unless somebody else brought it to her attention,” Senator Birmingham said.
Senate President Slade Brockman, the Finance Minister and the Department of Parliamentary Services and Prime Minister and Cabinet all denied having any prior knowledge of the mistake.
In fact, despite media reports into the matter as early as last Thursday, officials from DPS and PM&C did not become aware of the error until it was aired on ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.
Neither DPS secretary Rob Stefanic or PM&C first assistant secretary John Reed seek further information following the revelation.
But Mr Reed added he had discussed the matter with the parliamentary liaison officer who was handed the incorrect speech.
“What prompted me this morning was the house parliamentary liaison officer reaching out to me to confirm what had happened,” he said.
Senator Birmingham confirmed he had spoken to a senior adviser within the Prime Minister’s office “in passing” about the incident, but couldn’t say when it first became aware of the matter.
