Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The government has been returning to some priority legislation after having spent the last two years focused on the pandemic response and the economic recovery. And the first of those priorities has been to ensure that we finalise the Religious Discrimination Bill, which I look forward to introducing into this House tomorrow. At the same time, the Attorney-General has been working steadily away and been working with cabinet on our draft legislation for an integrity commission, and that also soon will be available for people to give their responses to, and we will see whether that has support.

The bills and other proposals that have been put forward are not proposals that are supported by the government. What we have been doing already is taking action to invest in organisations like ACLEI and extending their coverage. It's the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity—one of the members opposite didn't seem to be aware of what that was. We have invested in that organisation to ensure that it's reaching more and more of the government agencies. It's an important integrity office of the Commonwealth. It's very different to what happens at state levels. To make an assumption that the enforcement regimes and the authorities that exist already at a Commonwealth level are the same as those at a state level—they are different. That's why you often see different things done at a Commonwealth and a state level. I would ask the Minister representing the Attorney-General to add further.

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