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

I thank the member for his contribution. The member for Isaacs has provided a contribution and asked a series of questions with respect to the government's model for a Commonwealth integrity commission, as did the member for Warringah. The member for Warringah's questions were a little bit more sober and measured, so I might deal with those first. They went to the issue of average staffing levels, and obviously the member for Warringah noted that this present budget, which we're dealing with at the moment, sets out an ASL of 76 for the Commonwealth integrity commission this financial year. She put the reasonable question on whether or not that will likely be achieved before the end of the financial year.

The best answer to that is that much will depend on the extent to which we can secure a passage through parliament for the legislation. There's sufficient time at the end of the consultation period to achieve that, but of course that is a matter that's very substantially out of the government's hands, insofar as we will need support in the Senate for that bill. It's obviously also the case that there are 38 ASL in this budget which go directly to ACLEI, which will establish the first stage of the development of the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, which is the expansion of ACLEI's jurisdiction, which I noted earlier.

With respect to the member for Isaacs's contribution, very little of which I think was particularly fair, perhaps one good example as to why we have designed the model in the way that we have goes directly to the lack of support for this model from Geoffrey Watson QC. Mr Watson was actually involved in an ICAC matter that, in my observation, illustrates the reason why we have been cautious with our model. Mr Watson is obviously not a supporter of the model that we have put forward, because it's obviously too cautious in his view and too protective of individual rights.

Geoffrey Watson was a former ICAC counsel assisting, and I think the issue that I'm about to raise gives a great illustration of why sober, temperate and cautious approaches, even inside a very, very powerful investigative body like this, are warranted. The former New South Wales police minister Mike Gallacher was forced from office after counsel assisting at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Geoffrey Watson SC, made accusations of corruption that were found to be totally unwarranted. This is the same Mr Watson, referred to by the member for Isaacs, who doesn't support our model. He made those accusations by way of questioning. The assessment of Mr Watson's conduct from the ICAC's independent inspector, Bruce McClintock SC, indeed triggered the eventual clearing of Mr Gallacher's name.

There was no evidence presented to support the allegation that Mr Gallacher was corrupt. There was no finding of corruption against Mr Gallacher. Mr Gallacher's career was, in effect, destroyed by the line of questioning from Mr Watson. Those issues related to an incident in September 2014, when Mr Watson was questioning businessman Darren Williams at a public hearing about his relationship with Mr Gallacher and he asked Mr Williams if the two men had 'hatched a corrupt scheme to make donations to the Liberal Party'. When that was denied, Mr Watson, counsel assisting, said to Mr Williams, the witness, 'Well, can I tell you by the end of this you're going to regret having given that answer.' That questioning of a witness asserted a question as evidence. Indeed, the question effectively became treated as the conclusion and destroyed this individual's career. That was quite wrong, and it illustrates all of the problems that we are trying to avoid by having a cautious approach to public hearings on the public sector side of the model that we've developed.

That line of questioning prompted a warning in parliament that Mr Watson's unwarranted corruption allegation, which led to Mr Gallagher's exclusion from his own party of choice and his resignation from parliament, amounted to 'an attack on the entire democratic fabric of the state'. So I must say that Mr Watson's objections to our model tell me that the model's probably about right, because that cowboy behaviour that you had from Mr Watson in that hearing destroyed a career without due process, without any fairness and without any of the protections that all of us have enjoyed in this country for many years.

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