Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

I notice that the member for Denison comes in for all my best speeches in the House. The opposition welcomes the statement today from the Minister for Home Affairs in relation to Australia’s report on our antibribery framework to the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, in Paris. I note the work done by former ministers Johnson and Ellison from another place in the initial stages of this report’s preparation, and it is pleasing to hear that the OECD continues to commend Australia for its ‘above average’ implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. The OECD working group published its report on Australia’s performance when it came to this convention in January 2006. In 2006 the OECD also commended Australia for demonstrating a ‘strong commitment to combating foreign bribery’.

In response to recommendations in that report the former government had a targeted awareness campaign on the foreign bribery offence, and the Attorney-General’s Department worked to assist government and non-government organisations in raising awareness about the offence in addition to beginning the work on the report delivered in Paris last week. The occurrence of bribery and corruption of public officials is a taint on any country’s reputation. Even the appearance of bribery or corruption lowers international confidence in a country’s trading reputation and undermines domestic confidence in that country’s key institutions. It is of vital importance that Australian governments of any political persuasion continue to maintain vigilance against any such occurrence. The opposition will remain committed to supporting the government in a bipartisan fashion in this parliament’s endeavours to stop any emergence of bribery or corruption of public officials in any of our institutions. We welcome this report.

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