Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank each member for their contribution—the member for Higgins on domestic violence, the member for Gilmore on the Fair Work Commission's decision on penalty rates and employment, and the member for Isaacs on the Commonwealth Integrity Commission. In this contribution I will focus on the Integrity Commission, but I note for the member for Gilmore that, of course, it was the case that the decision with respect to penalty rates was made by the independent Fair Work Commission, which was established by Labor, according to all the rules of engagement and consideration. That was not a decision of the government; that was a decision of a body created by your side of politics.

With respect to the anticorruption body, I am becoming very aware of the member for Isaacs's views. There is a range of different models that you could determine upon. There's great detail that needs to be determined in each of those broad models. I understand the member for Isaacs's views. In fact, they are eerily similar to those echoed in an article by Nick O'Malley recounting some statements made by Stephen Charles as a former judge from Victoria. Stephen Charles said:

The Coalition's proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is a fraudulent nonsense, designed to protect ministers, parliamentarians and their aides from investigation and exposure.

That does sound very conspiratorial. The headline for that article was: 'Coalition's anti-corruption body "a sham", retired judge says'. This article is eerily similar to the submissions made by the shadow Attorney-General today.

It was interesting to note before the election that there were some sage remarks from the President of the Law Council about that statement from Stephen Charles, the retired Victorian judge. The President of the Law Council of Australia, Arthur Moses, felt strongly enough to issue a statement about those words used by Stephen Charles. He said:

I don't think it is appropriate or correct to refer to the model proposed by Attorney-General Porter of a national integrity commission as fraudulent or designed to avoid scrutiny of ministers.

It was a very serious assertion which should not have been made …

He went on to say:

I hope and expect any debate after the election on this important step to combat corruption, no matter who is in power, will be conducted respectfully with the rule of law at the front of the mind of everyone.

He went on further:

Nobody should throw allegations around like confetti in order to impugn the motives of those who disagree with their model. We should all focus on the issues, not rhetoric.

I think that is exceptionally good advice. The shadow Attorney-General and I will have a great deal of work to do together over the coming months on this body—work which will go out in a full legislative draft for public consultation, which no doubt then will go to committee. It will be a very complicated and long piece of legislation.

There was some rhetoric. I will answer the rhetoric as best I can. Have we determined upon the particular model that was set out in our December 2018 discussion paper entitled A Commonwealth integrity commission—proposed reforms because we hate the idea of accountability? Not unsurprisingly, you will figure the answer to that is no. Having watched and learnt from the particular shortcomings that have clearly been exhibited in state bodies of this type, we've determined upon the particular model that was set out in considerable detail in that paper in December 2018 because we think, firstly, that represents the best parts of the state models and drops off the worst parts and, secondly, the Commonwealth integrity environment is very different from and, dare I say it, far more complicated than the state integrity environment. Looking at the Greens' bill that was put through the Senate in the last few days, and the Independent bill from the former member for Indi that was put into parliament in the previous parliament, which are very, very similar—in fact, almost identical in every serious material respect—one of the difficulties with those models, among many others, is that they fail to take into account any consideration or propose proper rules as to how that new body would interact with the very complicated environment that we're in where there are a number of existing bodies. How do you avoid duplication, overlap and wasting of resources? How would these things work in terms of each other's jurisdiction?

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