Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all members who have made a contribution to this debate, not only on this occasion but on previous occasions. Those watching will have no doubt come to the conclusion that there is no real enthusiasm for the work of the committee, nor is there necessarily agreement even within the parties, let alone across the parties, about what form a code of conduct should take or indeed whether one should be embraced at all.

As a member of the committee, I am very conscious of the enormous amount of work that went into the task that had been given the committee, and I want to acknowledge the work of Mr David Elder, sitting beside the Deputy Speaker. As the secretary of the committee he bears the brunt, along with his staff, for much of that work. The then chair, and now Deputy Speaker, Anna Burke did a marvellous job in ensuring that we took into consideration not only the views of members of Parliament—and the roundtable was very, very important—but also the broader community. In addition to that there was an insistence that work be done to ensure that we fully understood what happens in other nations, particularly those nations working within the Westminster system; for example, the United Kingdom and Canada and many places, including the States, where codes of conduct exist.

The inquiry came about as a result of the various agreements between the crossbenchers and the Prime Minister in the work-up to the formulation of government following the 2010 election, and I acknowledge that Mr Oakeshott, the member for Lyne, in particular, was particularly keen to ensure that the government and therefore the parliament looked at the idea of the establishment of a code of conduct—and here we are. It is nothing new. I think the record goes back to 1975. Since then parliament has been looking at various options for codes of conduct, and I think the fact that it has been so long should not be seen as an unwillingness by politicians to impose a code of conduct upon themselves but more a reflection of the unusual status of the parliament and the complexity of the issue.

Of course none of us as members of parliament should fear a code of conduct, certainly not. So many in our society now face them, all the way from business professionals right through to sporting professionals, and we often see the results of breaches in the sporting arena—excuse the pun—on a regular basis. So we here should not fear a code of conduct. But what we really need to do as members of parliament is to understand what we hope such a code would or should achieve. I am very pleased to see that the committee ruled out entirely the idea, as have all jurisdictions, that the code should go to the personal life of a member of parliament but should be confined to the work of a member of parliament. I think that is absolute common sense.

But I think it is fair to say that even the committee struggled to determine with any form of unanimity what we are seeking to achieve with this code. As parliamentarians we face more exposure and probably more transparency than any other type of work in this country largely because we have the media holding us to account on a regular basis. I think there is an important potential educational role for a code of conduct, a standard by which members can benchmark themselves, particularly new members of this place who might not understand all the workings of the parliament, and I do not see any harm in that. But if you are going to have a code of conduct you have to start asking yourself what sanctions are going to be available under the code. In this place we already have a substantial capacity for the privileges committee to have sanctions against members of parliament, so it is still unclear in my mind what enhancement we would have through the code of conduct and indeed an integrity commissioner.

My view is that, while we should have no fear of this idea, it is not something we should rush into. We should continue to consider the issue and watch international developments but remind ourselves on a daily basis that we face the electors every three years and we face enormous scrutiny, including through the media. I think it is the view of the committee—and I do not really mean to speak for them but having sat in the committee I can say this confidently—that the level of scrutiny we currently face is sufficient and that the processes in place are sufficient but that we should keep looking at this issue. (Time expired)

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