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

I thank the House for the opportunity to respond to the matter raised by the shadow Attorney-General. I make the point, firstly, that, despite the claims of the shadow Attorney-General, the Morrison government has a detailed and well-developed model for a Commonwealth integrity commission. We have consulted extensively on that model. We have committed funding. In fact, in total almost $150 million in funding has been set aside for the operation of the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, and the principles under which it will operate have been set out very clearly. It will be able to investigate past conduct and matters that occurred prior to its commencement. Its scope will include some 145 criminal offences, which presently exist, including in the Criminal Code Act, in the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act and in the Public Interest Disclosure Act. The government will also create new offences relating to corrupt conduct, including concealing corruption and repeated public sector corruption.

I want to be very clear in response to an endless series of misleading claims made by the shadow Attorney-General. The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will have the same powers as a royal commission to investigate criminal corruption in the public sector. The Commonwealth Integrity Commission will be able to receive referrals from all of the existing integrity agencies, such as the Australian Federal Police and the ombudsman, and it is designed so that it will deal with the most serious types of criminal conduct. That's an important design point. It is very important that we do not set up a body which can become a vehicle for political stunts, for referrals which are made for purely political purposes of the kind we have repeatedly seen from the shadow Attorney-General. On nine occasions, the shadow Attorney-General has pompously stood in front of the cameras and said, 'I am referring this matter to the Australian Federal Police.' On nine occasions the Australian Federal Police have said, 'There is nothing here.' Of course, the shadow Attorney-General would like nothing better than a giant machine into which he can feed political accusations, but we are taking a much more serious-minded approach to this.

The reality is, in the design of such a scheme, it is critical that we strike a balance between effectively dealing with serious corruption in the public sector while ensuring that appropriate checks and balances are in place. The simple fact is we have never heard from Labor or the shadow Attorney-General what Labor's model would involve. We hear repeatedly from the shadow Attorney-General; he just used the same formulation in his remarks as he uses in the headings of his media releases. He says that Labor would have a 'powerful, transparent and independent national anticorruption commission'. Well, I've got news for the shadow Attorney-General: three adjectives is not a policy.

There is a very wide range of serious design questions which need to be considered when it comes to what ought to be included in the design of such a scheme. It is blatantly clear from the experience with state government bodies around the country that there have been manifest examples of severe injustice occurring because of design flaws in the way that the various state anticorruption bodies work. That is why our government has made claim that we have serious reservations with the models that have been put forward by others in this place—for example, the models put forward by both the member for Indi and the Greens Party have serious weaknesses. They do not sufficiently provide procedural fairness to individuals who are being investigated for corrupt conduct. They would allow the use of significant coercive powers in relation to low-level misconduct and disciplinary offences. They would not safeguard against vexatious, baseless, politically motivated and time-wasting referrals which detract from legitimate investigations. Again, I remind the House that sadly the shadow Attorney-General has a distinctly inglorious record of engaging repeatedly in just such vexatious, baseless, politically motivated and time-wasting referrals. The models that have been put up do not include mechanisms to protect national security information, do not include protections for journalists and their sources and would compromise the potential prosecutions of corrupt conduct by overly publicising investigations.

I will say this of the member for Indi and the Australian Greens: they at least have put forward a model. The government has a very detailed model. We've seen a model from the Australian Greens and from the member for Indi. Both of those models are very seriously flawed, for the reasons that I have indicated. But I make the point that we have seen no model from the shadow Attorney-General. He has never bothered to share with the Australian people what he is proposing. He has three adjectives. Government by adjective is what we can expect from the Labor Party. That is not a way to deal with a matter of this serious nature.

We have put forward a detailed model. It has been carefully developed and extensively consulted on. The funding is there. As the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have made repeatedly clear: if Labor stands ready to support our model, we stand ready to introduce it. But, disappointingly, Labor has resolutely refused to engage. Labor has spent three years preferring to engage in political point scoring rather than constructively taking this matter forward. How the shadow Attorney-General can stand up with a straight face and claim that he supports progress in this area after his inglorious record on this matter is, frankly, bemusing.

It is bemusing how a party features such eminent personalities as Craig Thomson, who was found guilty of 65 charges of fraud and theft for using Health Services Union funds for personal benefit; how a party features such personalities as former Senator Sam Dastyari, who was happy to let a Chinese company and a donor pay for his travel and legal expenses and is known to have provided advice to a Chinese donor, Mr Huang Xiangmo, about how to avoid surveillance from Australian intelligence agencies. The inglorious record of the Labor Party when it comes to these matters is really quite extensive.

We've had the extraordinary scenario where the shadow minister for government accountability, Senator Keneally, who, in her time as the Premier of New South Wales, cancelled the Sydney Metro project and extraordinarily claimed that there was no loss of public money involved in that. The New South Wales Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, in his report on transport projects, said:

Of the $412 million spent on the Sydney Metro, $356 million represents expenditure with no apparent future benefit to the people of New South Wales.

The then Premier of New South Wales—now laughably Labor's spokesperson on government accountability—who took the decision to dump Sydney Metro was responsible for that extraordinary waste of money.

Of course, the Labor Party is the happy home of Adam Somyurek, who featured in an investigation into the alleged rorting of taxpayer funds. He admitted signing off timesheets that allowed a staff member doing factional work to be paid with taxpayer funds. The Labor Party is the long-time home of Mr Eddie Obeid, who was ultimately sentenced to five years imprisonment for misconduct in public office. Mr Ian Macdonald corruptly issued lucrative mining licences at Doyles Creek in the Hunter Valley. The Supreme Court sentenced him to 10 years. Those charges were later quashed, and he is awaiting retrial. Justice Adamson described him as 'devious' and said that, in the discharge of ministerial responsibilities, he had betrayed the people of New South Wales. Of course, there's Joe Tripodi, and Cesar Melhem. Who can forget Cesar Melhem? And who can forget the inglorious record of the member for Maribyrnong on these matters? He was very extensively ventilated in the trade union royal commission.

On the other side of the chamber, we have a party that has not bothered to put forward a model. We, by contrast, have a detailed model. Our position has not changed. If the Labor Party wants to join with us, we can get it done.

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