Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I'll deal first with the matters raised by the member for Berowra, who I see has left the chamber without waiting for the answers. The member for Berowra raised some questions about the decision I made under section 71 of the Judiciary Act to end the prosecution of Bernard Collaery, and I have to say that his allegation that I did not explain that decision is an absurd one. I held a press conference at which I explained the reasons behind the ending of the prosecution of Mr Bernard Collaery. As I said then, and I'll say it again, it reflects the government's commitment to our national security and our commitment to our relations with our neighbours.

The government remains absolutely steadfast in our commitment to keep Australians safe by keeping secrets out of the wrong hands. As such—and I explained this at the time—I made an application to the ACT Court of Appeal to consider redactions to parts of its judgments prior to publication. That's the end of what I will say publicly about this. The longstanding practice of the government has been to neither confirm nor deny claims about intelligence matters. I will strictly adhere to that practice. I reject completely the absurd, ridiculous and, might I say, disgraceful suggestion made by the member for Berowra that the decision to end the prosecution of Mr Bernard Collaery had anything to do with the service of Mr Collaery as an independent member of the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory, during which time he was for a time the Attorney-General of the Australian Capital Territory.

As to the other matter raised by the member for Berowra, which was the Montgomery case, it's a case that raised some important legal questions about the scope of the Commonwealth's power to make laws under the aliens power in the Australian Constitution. The previous Attorney-General brought that constitutional aspect of the case before the High Court and made submissions on that aspect of the case. The High Court had heard the matter in April 2022 and had reserved judgement on it before the election of the Labor government on 21 May. A ministerial delegate—I'll repeat that; a ministerial delegate—in the Department of Home Affairs overturned the decision to cancel Mr Montgomery's visa, restoring his visa, on 15 July 2022. In light of Mr Montgomery's visa being restored, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, who were the parties to the case in the High Court, considered it appropriate to file a notice of discontinuance. It was their application in the High Court which ended the appeal on 28 July 2022. The member for Berowra, who is claiming to be the shadow Attorney-General in this parliament, would be well advised to actually check some facts, check something about legal process and check something about the processes of the High Court before he seeks to raise the kinds of absurd questions that he wasted the time of this chamber with.

I thank the member for Moreton for raising the importance of access to justice in this place, including drawing attention to the very valuable Lighthouse Project in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Ensuring that people have access to justice is an absolutely fundamental and critical element of the rule of law. I'm very pleased at the limited but nevertheless additional funding that we've been able to provide in the October budget to a range of parts of the legal assistance sector.

I want to quickly turn to the member for Wentworth's questions, one of which went to the Safer Communities Fund. The Safer Communities Fund is something that I think had reached its 10th round by the time of the announcement in the last federal budget before the October budget. It was, of course, for grants to improve community safety, but the $50 million funding had not been announced, no grant round had been commenced and the funds remained unallocated. What's significant here is that the Auditor-General had found that applications to the Safer Communities Fund were not assessed in accordance with program guidelines, decisions were not informed by departmental briefings and reasons for decisions were frequently not recorded. We are actively looking at options to make sure that communities continue to get the funding they need.

If I can, I will turn very quickly to the questions by the member for Menzies. I thank him for his work in the Joint Select Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation. I can assure him that there will be merit based appointment processes for all of the National Anti-Corruption Commission appointments. The arrangement that we have in this bill is for a relatively unprecedented membership of a committee of 12, with six government members, four opposition members and two crossbench members. There's only one other example of such a structure among the parliamentary committee structures.

It's entirely appropriate that the appointments be made by the government, but we are providing for an approval process of the important positions at the National Anti-Corruption Commission. I would really seek to assure the member for Menzies and all those interested in the National Anti-Corruption Commission about the process. It's a relatively unusual one in the Australian political context, in having not quite what one would call confirmation hearings, like they do in the Senate of the United States Congress. Nevertheless, having an approval process for a government appointment is a relatively unusual thing. I think it will achieve the purpose that we want of providing an assurance to the Australian people that the very best people are being appointed to these positions.

Any government in the future that seeks to make a partisan appointment is going to cop criticism from the committee. That's the way this process should work. If the government sought to abuse the appointments power by making a totally partisan appointment, intending, if you like, to thwart or abuse the processes of the National Anti-Corruption Commission itself, it would do so at its peril.

I am very much hoping that we will have the support of the entire parliament for the model that we have brought forward. I do believe that the bill we have brought to the parliament, with the 11 government amendments that I've given notice of, is going to be the very best model of an anticorruption commission, based, as it is, on learning from the mistakes that have been made and some of the deficiencies that have been identified in the eight state and territory anticorruption commissions that we've seen established over the last 30 years.

I thank the member again very much for his participation in this parliament's processes.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 13:38 to 16:00

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