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

I was going to the issue of the design considerations which obviously bear on the question the member has asked about the particular hypothetical factual circumstances she's addressed. But the real and sensible risk of frivolous referrals is an important, relevant design consideration because we've seen a pattern of frivolous referrals from the member for Isaacs. There have been nine failed referrals to the Australian Federal Police. I strongly suspect that it's more than the number of times he has been to his own electorate in this term. The answer to the question is clearly that, under the model that we've extensively consulted on, the Commonwealth Integrity Commission will be able to receive referrals relating to allegations involving parliamentarians via two channels: referral by an integrity agency which has become aware of the matter and where there's a reasonable suspicion of a relevant criminal offence, and self-referral by the parliamentarian to whom the issue relates. So we have built this into our model. We have.

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