Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to follow the member for Isaacs and that quite remarkable collection of non sequiturs and understatements. I call the attention of the House to quite an extraordinary understatement: 'I am not saying that Labor governments in Australia have been without blemish.' Well may he say that. That is a very delicate understatement indeed.

The first proposition I want to put before the House this afternoon is that our government has a thorough and comprehensive process in place to establish a Commonwealth integrity commission. It will be the lead body in a successful multiagency anticorruption framework. It will enhance accountability across the public sector. We've had a nationwide consultation process on legislation to establish this commission, with 333 written submissions and 46 consultations, meetings and round tables. We're now carefully and methodically considering that feedback.

We've set aside funding for the Commonwealth Integrity Commission of $106.7 million in the 2019-20 budget in addition to $40.7 million of funding for the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, which will also transfer across to the new commission. There'll be 172 staff. The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will receive referrals from all of the existing integrity agencies, such as the Australian Federal Police and the Ombudsman, and will be able to investigate a matter on its own motion where it discovers suspected criminal conduct in the course of an existing investigation. The law enforcement division will be able to take direct referrals from the public. We have a well-established, well-developed scheme. We are working through a thorough and methodical process to implement and legislate it, and the Attorney-General is leading that work. It is, frankly, disappointing that the shadow Attorney-General failed to make reference to what he well knows to be our comprehensive and well-developed policy in this area.

That brings me to my second proposition, which is that you'd be extremely naive to take the opposition at face value in their high-minded claims in relation to fighting corruption, because this is the same party which is promising to abolish the Registered Organisations Commission and the Australian Building and Construction Commission, two organisations which are on the front line in dealing with dishonest conduct. Why are they doing that? Because, as usual, they are dancing to the tune of their union masters.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission has been successful in 78 out of 87 cases decided since December 2016, and more than $26 million in penalties have been awarded. But Labor is root-and-branch opposed to it. Why? Because the CFMMEU is root-and-branch opposed to it—and what a shining beacon of integrity that organisation is! Labor are jumping to its tune and then claiming straight-facedly that they've got a disinterested commitment to reducing corruption in the public sector. They've made a series of inaccurate statements about the carefully designed and developed model that we're advancing through a thorough legislative process. Our Commonwealth Integrity Commission will have jurisdiction across a wide range of persons and entities. It will be able to exercise own motion powers in relation to law enforcement corruption issues. It will be able to conduct public hearings into law enforcement corruption issues. It will be able to look into conduct that occurred prior to its establishment, if the offence existed at the time the conduct occurred. So do not believe the misstatements and inaccuracies perpetuated by the other side of the House in relation to our well-developed plans for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission.

One would be particularly naive to take at face value these claims from the opposition, because of the rich irony in the Labor Party seeking to present itself in some way as a champion of purity and probity in public administration. They jump up and down, for example, in relation to particular programs that the government has on foot to deliver commuter car parks—of course, a policy objective identical to the policy objective that was the purpose of the Park and Ride Fund taken by the Labor Party to the last election. Yet, for some reason which has still not been adequately explained by those opposite, if a commuter car park is committed to by the Labor Party, it's good; if a commuter car park is committed to by the Liberal and National parties, it's bad. There is no explanation at all.

We hear them quoting at length from Auditor-General's report's, and yet it is clear that, for example, the member for Ballarat has been the subject of extensive scrutiny by the Auditor-General. In Auditor-General report No. 9 of 2014-15, Performance audit: the design and conduct of the third and fourth funding rounds of the Regional Development Australia Fund, what did the Auditor-General say:

It is a clear instance of the member, at the time discharging her ministerial responsibilities, systematically overriding the recommendations of an independent panel to prefer funding of projects located in ALP electorates. And they stand up and protest about probity in public administration!

It doesn't stop with the member for Ballarat, I say to the House. Let's look at another performance audit by the Australian National Audit Office, Auditor-General report No. 3 of 2010-11, Performance audit: the establishment, implementation and administration of the strategic projects component of the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program. Who was the responsible minister at the time? It was the member for Grayndler, now the Leader of the Opposition. And what did the Australian National Audit Office say:

The awarding of funding to projects also disproportionately favoured ALP held seats …

This is very interesting:

… the Minister's Office provided the department with a list of 137 projects with an aggregate program cost of $549.72 million. … Two additional worksheets had been created after the spreadsheet had been completed by the department … :

  …   …   …

That's the kind of conduct that the member for Grayndler was engaging in and overseeing when he had ministerial responsibility.

We heard the shadow Attorney-General huffing and puffing and grandly quoting statements like 'the standard you walk by is the standard you accept'. I invite the Labor Party to engage in just a moment of self-examination, because what we will see is a very sharp contrast between this purported claim to be disinterested champions of public administration and the actual record. This is from the party of Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald, Joe Tripodi and Craig Thomson. Here they are claiming to be disinterested champions of public administration.

The Labor shadow minister with purported responsibility for government accountability is the former Labor Premier of New South Wales, who presided over the last rotting days of the Obeid-Tripodi-Macdonald era. When she was Premier of New South Wales, Senator Keneally's first action was to return Ian Macdonald, Eddie Obeid and mate No. 1 Joe Tripodi to the ministry; subsequently, of course, he has been charged and convicted. The kind of conduct that we have seen exposed is quite extraordinary, and we have these claims from the Labor Party that they are disinterested champions of public administration.

In particular, we had in comments by the shadow Attorney-General criticisms of the Prime Minister's administration of the vaccine rollout. You could not find a more extraordinary non-sequitur being presented as an argument for an anticorruption commission. We see that the shadow Attorney-General is really seeking to bundle up every politicised complaint or attack on this government and link it to Labor's purported disinterested claim to advance good public administration. The facts are: we have a thorough, well-developed, well-researched plan for a Commonwealth Integrity Commission; we are prosecuting it methodically; and we will bring legislation forward.

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