The Australian government has spent $87,000 defending a case brought by Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon seeking a copy of the Coalition agreement, Malcolm Turnbull has said.

Turnbull revealed the cost in question time on Tuesday, but said it would be reduced by a costs order which the shadow agriculture minister first denied existed before he was forced to clarify that it did exist but he hadn’t been aware of it.

The legal dispute for the Coalition agreement between the Liberal and National parties has been enlivened by Turnbull’s inability to discipline the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce and Labor probing the nature of the document in Senate estimates.



Labor has sought the Coalition agreement under freedom of information, but the government refuses to provide it on the basis it is a party political document not a government document.

Fitzgibbon is fighting that ruling in the administrative appeals tribunal (AAT). He suffered a setback in August when the federal circuit court concluded the AAT was correct to refuse to force Turnbull’s lawyers to show Labor’s lawyers the document. The court ordered Fitzgibbon to pay Turnbull’s costs “as agreed”.

In question time, Turnbull said “the commonwealth’s legal fees so far have been $87,000”. “But they will be considerably reduced because of a costs order made against [Fitzgibbon],” he said. “We hope in the interests of preserving the public finances of the nation [Fitzgibbon] pays up in accordance with the court order.”

Fitzgibbon then claimed to have been misrepresented because “there is no such costs order”.

After two hours, Turnbull returned to the chamber to table the order, forcing Fitzgibbon to make an explanation.

“As I understand it in a technical sense there is a costs order,” he said. “To the extent to which that’s true I apologise to the House if I misled the House. I wasn’t aware or fully understood that matter.

“I can explain: there is no agreement between parties as to costs, there is no dollar figure, and there has been no demand on me for costs. I wasn’t aware a costs order had been made.”

In Senate estimates on Monday, Labor probed the Nationals’ staffing allocation to determine if the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet had oversight of Joyce’s now partner, Vikki Campion, moving from Joyce’s employ to the resources and northern Australia minister, Matt Canavan.

The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, conceded the Coalition agreement went to the running of government and also specified the “allocation of staff to the National party”.

Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, seized on the description, and told Cormann, based on his evidence to the committee: “There is no basis on which the government can continue to hide this document from the public.”

Cormann said the agreement was a “political document” that “goes to how our parties work together in government and opposition”, including the proportion of ministers and opposition spokespeople and staff which are “administrative arrangements between two political parties”.

Labor will continue to seek the Coalition agreement through the AAT case, after having asked for it unsuccessfully in Senate estimates.

In a statement Fitzgibbon said the Australian people “deserve to know the basis on which their prime minister holds office”.

“Australians shouldn’t have to blindly suffer the dysfunctional relationship between the warring parties in this Coalition government,” he said.

“Turnbull spent the last two-and-a-half weeks claiming the Coalition agreement prevented him from sacking disgraced former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce – when everybody knew it was really just because Turnbull was too weak to act.”