Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Now she's the first law officer, as members behind me have pointed out. There is a stink in this place, and it comes from the ever-growing list of Morrison government scandals. There is a way of getting rid of this, of cleaning up this mess. The first and most important step is to vote this mob out. The second step is to institute, under a Labor government, a proper anticorruption commission. This government will never do it themselves. We know that, because they're worried about what might be uncovered. They are so terrified of being held to account for those and other scandals that they refuse to even allow the need for a national anticorruption commission to be properly debated in this House. They're so scared of scrutiny over car park rorts and others that they are trying to hide relevant documents for about 20 years, claiming public interest immunity.

They're like a vampire: happy to drink down on taxpayer funds but terrified of a bit of sunlight. There is nothing that scares this government more than transparency. They know it would be the end of many of their ministers on the front bench. They're increasingly out of step with the wider community but also with the parliament. As the member for Isaacs pointed out, every single non-government member and senator in this parliament is united in demanding a powerful independent national anticorruption commission. Every state and territory now has a dedicated anticorruption commission. It was weird hearing the minister talk about scandals in New South Wales which were only uncovered because there was a corruption commission in New South Wales. That's why we know about those and why those people were held to account, as they should have been.

What is this government so afraid of? We know that the proposal they have put forward is not adequate. Everybody in the country who knows anything about the establishment of corruption commissions is telling them that. This is not the model to pursue. Yet this is the model this government is continuing to debate and talk about and somehow try and pretend it has got something when, in fact, it's actually doing nothing. At best, the government can offer some sort of political fix.

We know that only a Labor government would be committed to establishing an anticorruption commission. We know the only way we can get that is to vote this mob out, to ensure that we have an Albanese government. Only then can Australians have the government they deserve, a government they can actually trust.

See this speech in context