The justice minister, Michael Keenan, has refused to release his diary to prove he had a meeting with the Australian federal police when the government lost lower house votes in part due to his absence.
Keenan’s office has written to shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, refusing a freedom of information request for his diary on the day of the lost vote.
Dreyfus has blasted Keenan’s “mystifying” refusal to provide proof he had a commitment that stopped him from attending parliament as he claimed, labelling it an attempt to cover up his part in the government’s embarrassing defeat.
On 1 September, the end of the first sitting week after the election, the government lost several procedural votes on the floor of the house allowing Labor to set the agenda on a debate about the need for a banking royal commission.
It happened because senior figures, including the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, and two Western Australians, Keenan and the social services minister, Christian Porter, were not in the chamber.
Keenan apologised and sought to explain his absence by saying he needed to attend “a significant operation in the AFP”.
However, according to reports the operation relating to seizure of guns finished on 31 August and the minister’s involvement was a press conference in Melbourne on the morning of 2 September.
Dreyfus put in a freedom of information request for Keenan’s diary on 1 September, following his success in forcing the attorney general, George Brandis, to reveal his diary to show whether he consulted arts groups on funding cuts and same-sex marriage advocates.
Keenan’s chief of staff, Peter Soros, wrote to Dreyfus refusing to produce diary entries because they contain matters about “the deliberative processes of government”.
“The diary is maintained solely for internal purposes to assist in planning the minister’s workload and that of his office,” he wrote.
Soros said the diary was subject to frequent change, was prospective and “may not be an accurate historical record of the minister’s activities”.
He said releasing the diary would harm the working of Keenan’s office, relationships with enforcement agencies and confidentiality of deliberations of government.
Dreyfus is considering legally challenging the refusal.
He said: “All we have asked for is proof of Mr Keenan’s claim that he needed to leave parliament early to attend an AFP event.
“He has made that claim publicly. It is mystifying why he has refused our claim for proof.”
Dreyfus said it was “clear this government hates transparency”, citing its use of insecure messaging applications which may help avoid freedom of information disclosures, and Brandis’s refusal to provide his diary.
“This is just Mr Keenan trying to cover up the government’s fumbling of parliamentary procedure, a repeat of which we saw last night,” he said.
Dreyfus was referring to Labor embarrassing the government on Wednesday by getting government support for a motion saying the government had failed to crack down on multinational tax avoidance.
