Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] A fundamental principle of democracy is that our elected representatives are accountable to the people who elect them. There have been a large number of decisions involving the expenditure of public money by the Morrison government which have not been based on merit, based on independent assessments or in the interests of the Australian people but have been for purposes which suit the personal and political interests of government members of parliament. These decisions would certainly meet the average Australian's definition of alleged corruption and, in any other place, would be investigated by one of the state independent commissions. Yet, at a federal level, these types of decisions go uninvestigated. They are not investigated by an ICAC because this government refuses to establish one, and, in that respect, it is breaching that fundamental tenet of democracy—accountability to the people for the decisions that are being made.

The Australian people are asking why. Why are the government refusing to deliver their commitment on a federal ICAC? One could only guess that it is because those opposite know that they've been involved in decisions which amount to rorting of taxpayer dollars that they know would amount to alleged corruption under the state regimes, and they know that they potentially could lose their jobs if they were found to be corrupt. They are putting their personal interests ahead of proper accountability to and transparency for the Australian people, and that is unacceptable. The Australian people deserve better. They deserve accountability. They deserve a federal ICAC with proper powers.

What is this government hiding? That's what many Australians are asking. The list is a litany of abuse of taxpayers' funds. First, we've got the car park rorts—$600 million worth of funds that the ANAO said the Morrison government awarded to marginal coalition-held seats, based on a list of the top 20 marginals. Seventy-seven per cent of that funding went to coalition held seats. In one case, funding has gone to a car park next to a train station that's not even going to be a train station anymore. Sir Humphrey Appleby would be very, very proud of a decision like that!

Then we've got sports rorts. Of the $45 million under this fund, 80 per cent went to marginal coalition-held electorates, or seats that were targeted by the Liberal and National parties at the last election. A list was compiled by the sports minister's office that was signed off on by the Prime Minister's office that went completely against the independent assessments that had been made by the Australian Sports Commission.

Then we've got, of course, Western Sydney Airport, where you've got a plot of land that the government paid 10 times the amount it was worth—not exactly value for the taxpayer—to a person who was a donor to the Liberal Party.

We've even got individual circumstances of ministers being involved in inappropriate conduct. The minister for energy and his company that he part-owned with his brother illegally poisoned endangered grasslands, according to the environment department. The minister sought meetings with those department representatives, and the now Treasurer sought advice about whether the laws could be changed so that the minister and his brother would avoid prosecution for their actions.

There is a litany of examples, from this Morrison government, of abuse of taxpayer dollars, of abuse of the privilege of office and of decision-making to benefit individual members and their political interests, and it is using underhanded tactics to avoid scrutiny and to avoid accountability. The Australian people deserve better than that. In a democracy, the people deserve accountability and transparency. They're not getting that from this Morrison government. Only the Labor Party has a fair dinkum proposal for a federal ICAC that has teeth and can get to the bottom of alleged rorting.

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