Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Labor support the suspension of standing orders to facilitate this debate, but I should foreshadow that we don't support the substantive motion. The member for Clark hasn't given the opposition any advanced warning or consulted us on this motion. If he's serious about it, I'd encourage him to discuss it with us, particularly the shadow Attorney-General. Crown casino is the subject of a number of investigations at the moment, including in New South Wales. We look forward to the conclusion of those inquiries. If there is a need for further inquiries, the opposition has an open mind on this matter. The point needs to be very clearly made: anybody who thinks that corruption doesn't exist isn't looking. You can see evidence of that in New South Wales at ICAC now. Anyone who thinks that corruption doesn't exist at a federal level is just naive.

The minister at the table just mentioned ACLEI, a very good organisation, an organisation that I had the privilege to oversee as the Minister for Home Affairs in the previous Labor government. It was in working with that organisation that I saw corruption close up. I saw corruption at Sydney airport, with customs officials trying to bring drugs into the country. It was the work of that organisation that the minister just mentioned that helped to expose that and catch those individuals and prosecute them. Over that period of time, we expanded the remit of ACLEI. But it is fair to say that that, in itself, is not enough. We need an organisation that covers every department, every agency and all the politicians here in this building if we're going to make sure that, where corruption raises its head, it's caught and it's stamped out. The fact that we're debating here again a call for another ad hoc royal commission into allegations which, amongst other things—

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