Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I go to the issue about the presumption of innocence and, certainly I believe that that senator did, quite deservedly, get our presumption of innocence. She was afforded that presumption quite rightly, and I just say that we should be very mindful of denying that presumption in any future matters, given that it is part of the legal system and is certainly a convention. It should be something that we think seriously about and not trash if, indeed, something like this may arise again.

There have also been some comments about the royal commission. The Leader of the Opposition made very clear that we will support and cooperate with the royal commission—of course, we will—but we support another approach that we think will be more effective. People have to understand the history of the Australian Crime Commission. If they do, they would understand why that would be the better approach. The Australian Crime Commission is the body that arose out of the National Crime Authority. The National Crime Authority was established by the recommendations of a royal commission so that we would not have to continue to create royal commissions investigating crime. It is a standing royal commission. It has the powers to investigate serious and organised crime. It, along with the Federal Police, other Commonwealth agencies and state police, is well placed to investigate crime. We believe that any serious allegations of crime in any part of our society against anyone should be fully investigated. That is why it is important for the government to certainly contemplate accepting the recommendations of the Leader of the Opposition to support that task force.

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