Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! I must say, it is a pleasure—after having called for an independent parliamentary expenses authority for years; after having said that there needs to be an independent umpire that MPs can go to to find out whether or not a future claim is within the rules or not—that finally the government and the opposition have listened to the Greens.

This has been longstanding Greens policy because the rules up till now have been vague. That has been no excuse for members of parliament or ministers who have deliberately done the wrong thing—when just any simple test would tell you it is not right to use entitlements for your own private benefit, as opposed to for the public good. But we have said that there is a case—and we have made this case for many years—that, before an expense is incurred, there should be someone that members of parliament can go to. We have said that for a couple of reasons. One is that—as I said in a speech earlier today—when I first came into this place, I wanted to get some guidance as to whether or not a flight that I was about to pay for was within entitlements. I went and asked the department, and the department said: 'We cannot tell you. You are going to have to make that assessment.' And I said: 'Who determines whether I am right or wrong?' And they said: 'No-one.' That is not a situation that members of parliament should be in. There should be clear rules, and in most other workplaces that is the way it is. It is clear what is in and what is out. That should be the case here. It is not just from the perspective of members of parliament that this will make a difference; it will make a big difference for the public because, if the public knows that there is a place you can go to first, whenever anything is in doubt, to get advice or a ruling—if the public knows that, then there is absolutely no excuse for someone who then does the wrong thing afterwards. I bet that if former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop had gone to this body and asked, 'Can I get a chopper down to Geelong?' they would have said no. And I bet that if some former members or ministers had asked, 'Am I allowed to do a trip to look at an investment property or go to a wedding?' they would have said no. So, if this new body does its job, it is not only going to be helpful for people here but, more importantly—and this is the reason that we have advocated this for so long—the public will know that there is no longer any excuse.

What is concerning about this bill is that, as is often the way with these things, the government picks up an idea, picks up the concept of having an independent watchdog, and then defangs it. With this bill we see an advisory authority that, sadly, will not have the teeth that it should have. We should be doing more than giving advice to members of parliament, because if we want to do the second thing that I spoke about, regarding giving the public confidence, the public needs to know that the body that oversees the politicians has some teeth. Sadly, it does not at the moment. There is nothing in this bill about compliance and nothing about penalties. Without some muscle the authority might look good on paper, but, in terms of consequences, if there is misuse, it will be a failure. There needs to be a clear distinction drawn in the public mind between a slipup—and there would not be many excuses for a slipup after this body comes into place, but of course slipups will still happen; everyone accepts that—and intentional misuse of what is, at the end of the day, public money.

Given the lack of oversight in how expenses are incurred in this job, there is a very strong case for this body having some teeth—not just having advisory and audit aspects but some teeth. When this comes to the Senate we will be making the case that the legislation needs to change so that the body has some teeth. The government may find, if all it does is the minimum it thinks is necessary to get the public off its back from its perspective, that is not going to be enough because people can smell whether what you are doing is genuine. People will know whether this is just a sop to try to get past the latest issue of parliamentary entitlements and scandals and there is hope that the media and the public debate will move on to something else or whether it is genuine reform. As I said, the idea is very good, because it has been a Greens' idea for some time, but we want it to have some teeth. So I would urge the government, as this bill progresses through the parliament, to consider some sensible amendments to the bill to ensure that the body does have teeth and that it is a watchdog, not a lapdog. We have to make sure that the body has the power to not only do some investigations but do something if they find that there has been some wrongdoing.

As I said at the start, when it comes to the Liberal government, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. The time has come for them to pick up a Greens' idea. I am glad that they have seen the merit in something we have been arguing for for a very long time, and arguing for publicly, but do not just pick up half the idea; pick up the whole idea because then you will go a very long way to restoring the public's trust in all of us here as politicians.

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