Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a sad fact of life, but law enforcement often plays catch-up with criminals. Every day it seems there is a new online scam or fraud. Often, but not always, these scams and frauds can be traced overseas. Sadly, too often, the victims are the most vulnerable and, equally sadly, too embarrassed to come forward; hence, the crime goes undetected, not investigated and not punished. Criminals are clever. That's why we need robust laws to combat them.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Foreign Bribery) Bill, while not aimed at online fraud, is equally necessary in addressing another type of international crime—bribery. Global corruption is far reaching and hugely damaging. Bribery, in particular, harms investment and economic growth. It distorts markets, artificially inflates prices and leads to substandard products being procured. Further, it undermines efforts against poverty and disease and facilitates serious transnational crimes. Bribery corrodes good governance and contributes to social and economic inequality in local communities where it occurs.

Thankfully, Australia is a party to a number of international instruments aimed at fighting corruption, including bribery. These include the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development—the OECD—and the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. In addition, Australia is also engaged in the following regional and international forums and initiatives: the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group, the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, the Anti-Corruption and Transparency Experts' Working Group and the ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia-Pacific.

Undetected and unpunished, bribery undermines the reputation of all Australian businesses and negatively impacts business and government relations. The Australian government has a zero tolerance policy in relation to foreign bribery and supports ethical business practices. So, this bill is both welcome and timely. Bribery, by its very nature, is incredibly difficult to investigate and prosecute. It is both opaque and sophisticated. Sadly, there have been relatively few foreign bribery prosecutions in Australia, because the current foreign bribery defence in division 70 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code has been overly prescriptive and difficult to use. This bill seeks to address this issue. It does this by replacing the existing foreign bribery offence with a new carefully developed offence. For example, the prosecution needs to show that both the bribe and the business advantage were not legitimately due. This wording presents difficulties for prosecutors, so it will be replaced with 'improperly influencing a foreign public official'.

The bill also broadens the scope of 'foreign bribery offence' so that it will now capture bribery conducted to obtain personal advantage. This is because experience shows that bribes can include a range of benefits, including personal honours and the processing of visa or immigration requests, or in relation to reducing personal tax liability. Further, this bill seeks to prevent foreign bribery in the first place by implementing a new indictable corporate offence. This is in order to overcome the problem of companies that wilfully choose to turn a blind eye to misconduct by their employees. These provisions will apply to companies where an associate bribes a foreign public official for the profit or gain of the corporation. Importantly, the offence would not apply if the body corporate was able to demonstrate that it had adequate procedures in place to prevent the bribe in the first instance.

In a positive sense, this new provision will provide an incentive to companies to be proactive towards preventing bribery. I know many Australian companies already have rigorous procedures in place to combat bribery, and I commend them on this. To assist those companies that may not have the necessary procedures in place, guidance material on what constitute adequate procedures will be produced.

The measures in this bill may sound very familiar to those opposite. That is because they are virtually identical to the amendments introduced by those opposite in 2017 and then reintroduced in 2019. Both times under the watch of those opposite, those bills were allowed to lapse, failing to even be debated. The previous government had 1,627 days to bring the measures forward for debate and to pass them. They didn't. On these matters of corruption and bribery, there can be no leeway, no slacking off. We must be vigilant. The stakes are too high. Australia's international reputation for world-leading corporate governance, including antibribery provisions, must be protected, and this bill does that. I thank the Attorney-General for bringing the bill to the House. I commend it to the House.

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