Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to further the debate about a code of conduct for the parliament and for members of parliament. I note the draft code of conduct for members of parliament discussion paper that is the work of the House of Representatives Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests. I thank the committee for the really detailed and helpful work that they did that can assist members in this debate. This is a debate that has a long history, and I note by referring to the report that, when I look at the background, I see that this was a matter that came before the parliament. I think it was first in 1975. That was a report on declarations for interest. That was a joint committee on pecuniary interests of members of parliament, and that was presented to both houses in September 1975. It recommended that a joint standing committee be established and be given the task of drafting a code, but that recommendation was not implemented. But 1975 was a rather special year in parliamentary and political history, so I can understand why some things did not get taken up at that particular time.

In 1979 there was also an inquiry into public duty and private interest. It reported in July 1979 and recommended a code of conduct be implemented for office holders, including members of parliament. A regime for the registration of interests of members, which we all subscribe to here, was implemented in 1984 following it. It was not until 1991 that the then Prime Minister proposed a working group of parliamentarians be established to develop a seminar on the standards of conduct. Then the presiding officers reconvened a working group in the 37th Parliament and looked at that issue. It was 1996 when, if I remember correctly, Prime Minister John Howard implemented some sort of code for ministers. Then in 2007 Prime Minister Rudd introduced new standards of ministerial ethics. In parliament it was 2008 in the Main Committee where there was an exchange that gave rise to consideration of this issue. Then there was a certain incident, referred to in the report, within the parliamentary precincts that caused the Speaker to refer the incident to the committee. There was then discussion about that. With the 43rd Parliament there were certain agreements around this particular issue, and in November 2010 the House referred to the committee the development of a draft code of conduct for members of parliament. I note that, when the committee considered this, they did not make a finding or express a view on the threshold issue of whether a code of conduct should be adopted or not but they did set out a series of things, and one of them was appendix 5, a draft code of conduct for members of the House of Representatives. That is what the motion of the honourable member for Lyne refers to. So they do have a draft code there.

I was involved in an issue like this when I was in the New South Wales parliament. In the New South Wales parliament there was a lot of work done before we adopted certain codes and had an ethics committee. We had an ethics adviser, and the ethics adviser I found to be very useful because it is sometimes difficult when you need guidance. Who do you go to in this place? I know that the clerks are always very helpful and totally useful, as are the speakers and chairs, but having an ethics adviser who sat a little bit away was extremely useful in that regard.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am compelled to speak on this motion from the member for Lyne because of its sheer audacious and sanctimonious terms of reference. I find it unbelievable that the member for Lyne, after two years of his so-called agreement with his so-called rural Independents, has decided to raise this again. As I am a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Privileges, I can only speak in broad terms of some of the issues that I raise. However, let's be clear on this: the representative of the rural Independents and others in the privileges committee is the member for New England; and, while this matter was being considered in the privileges committee, he never turned up. If you are able to check the records you will see that he showed no interest in this committee until the issue of Craig Thomson, the member for Dobell, came up. So I find it unbelievable that after this period of time they have decided to give it a run again.

Let us just talk in broad terms. We know the report has been delivered to the parliament. This committee examined a member's code of conduct and they examined it on the basis that the parliament could not deal with members whose behaviour was deemed unacceptable. The British model, on which we base much of our system, gave us evidence. This was done in response to the misuse of entitlements by British MPs. It is quite well known what the British MPs did in terms of misusing their entitlements to houses and all the other things. They went to court. They lost their seats. But a huge bureaucracy was set up—and this is what the member for Lyne, in this motion, wants to do to us—set up a huge bureaucracy attached to this House, which would then go on a fishing expedition for nefarious or otherwise behaviour of MPs. And the evidence given by the British MPs was that many of the complaints of the electorate against MPs was not for behaviour unbecoming but for things like not replying to letters or not giving satisfactory answers, or not being responsive enough. This huge bureaucracy was set up and of course when you set up this bureaucracy it then goes looking for work.

This ingenuous behaviour by the member for Lyne is appalling. Maybe we should include in this motion, 'disingenuous behaviour by members' because the member for Lyne would find himself well and truly encapsulated in that term of reference. For example, he ratted on his own electorate. He allowed the Labor Party to form government even though his electorate is overwhelmingly conservative. He obviously helped deliver the carbon tax. He voted against the means test for private health. He voted against the bill for indexation of veterans after saying he would not. He voted against the youth allowance. His form on sincere behaviour is very ordinary. So I say to the member for Lyne, who comes into this place with a sanctimonious motion like this: you will not be here next time to be able to do anything about it. We will be left with the mess of this bureaucracy that you want to set up. Both the member for Lyne and the member for New England will not be here in the next parliament. That is pretty obvious. As a result, we are going to be left with their legacy. I suspect that is what they want to do.

MPs that misbehave in this place have been dealt with by the courts. Who can remember Keith Wright, or Dr Andrew Theophanous? They went to court; they got dealt with by the courts. If you are so bad your own party will deal with you—you will get dealt with at preselection time.

I have gone to the member for Lyne, for example, and asked for his help. He signed an agreement with the government about accountability, about developing a spatial accounting model which would tell us where the money is spent in each electorate. So I wrote to the member for Lyne recently and asked him what he was doing about it. He could not answer me. He then referred me on to the Prime Minister's office, who then just gave us a vague idea of what they wanted to do. They do not want any spatial accounting because you will actually see where the money is spent. We know that their electorates are being pork barrelled by this Labor Party in a huge way to get re-elected. So this is a disingenuous sanctimonious bill. It has been brought to this place by the member for Lyne, and it should be seen for what it is worth.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all members who have made a contribution to this debate, not only on this occasion but on previous occasions. Those watching will have no doubt come to the conclusion that there is no real enthusiasm for the work of the committee, nor is there necessarily agreement even within the parties, let alone across the parties, about what form a code of conduct should take or indeed whether one should be embraced at all.

As a member of the committee, I am very conscious of the enormous amount of work that went into the task that had been given the committee, and I want to acknowledge the work of Mr David Elder, sitting beside the Deputy Speaker. As the secretary of the committee he bears the brunt, along with his staff, for much of that work. The then chair, and now Deputy Speaker, Anna Burke did a marvellous job in ensuring that we took into consideration not only the views of members of Parliament—and the roundtable was very, very important—but also the broader community. In addition to that there was an insistence that work be done to ensure that we fully understood what happens in other nations, particularly those nations working within the Westminster system; for example, the United Kingdom and Canada and many places, including the States, where codes of conduct exist.

The inquiry came about as a result of the various agreements between the crossbenchers and the Prime Minister in the work-up to the formulation of government following the 2010 election, and I acknowledge that Mr Oakeshott, the member for Lyne, in particular, was particularly keen to ensure that the government and therefore the parliament looked at the idea of the establishment of a code of conduct—and here we are. It is nothing new. I think the record goes back to 1975. Since then parliament has been looking at various options for codes of conduct, and I think the fact that it has been so long should not be seen as an unwillingness by politicians to impose a code of conduct upon themselves but more a reflection of the unusual status of the parliament and the complexity of the issue.

Of course none of us as members of parliament should fear a code of conduct, certainly not. So many in our society now face them, all the way from business professionals right through to sporting professionals, and we often see the results of breaches in the sporting arena—excuse the pun—on a regular basis. So we here should not fear a code of conduct. But what we really need to do as members of parliament is to understand what we hope such a code would or should achieve. I am very pleased to see that the committee ruled out entirely the idea, as have all jurisdictions, that the code should go to the personal life of a member of parliament but should be confined to the work of a member of parliament. I think that is absolute common sense.

But I think it is fair to say that even the committee struggled to determine with any form of unanimity what we are seeking to achieve with this code. As parliamentarians we face more exposure and probably more transparency than any other type of work in this country largely because we have the media holding us to account on a regular basis. I think there is an important potential educational role for a code of conduct, a standard by which members can benchmark themselves, particularly new members of this place who might not understand all the workings of the parliament, and I do not see any harm in that. But if you are going to have a code of conduct you have to start asking yourself what sanctions are going to be available under the code. In this place we already have a substantial capacity for the privileges committee to have sanctions against members of parliament, so it is still unclear in my mind what enhancement we would have through the code of conduct and indeed an integrity commissioner.

My view is that, while we should have no fear of this idea, it is not something we should rush into. We should continue to consider the issue and watch international developments but remind ourselves on a daily basis that we face the electors every three years and we face enormous scrutiny, including through the media. I think it is the view of the committee—and I do not really mean to speak for them but having sat in the committee I can say this confidently—that the level of scrutiny we currently face is sufficient and that the processes in place are sufficient but that we should keep looking at this issue. (Time expired)

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion, which calls on the Leader of the House to bring forward urgently for the House's consideration the proposed changes to standing orders et cetera that would be needed to give effect to the draft code of conduct, which sits at appendix 5 of the recent report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee of Privileges and Members' Interests.

Now, we need to be clear what the question is that we are considering as we debate this motion. The question is not whether it is a good and desirable idea that members of parliament maintain high standards of personal conduct. Of course, that is a highly desirable objective and all members of parliament ought to be seeking to do that whether there is a code in existence or not. The question before the House this morning is not whether there is, at least as a matter of theory, merit in a code of conduct which parliamentarians are required to subscribe to. I think we can all agree with the proposition that at least in theory there could be merit in such a code, although I would note that the particular code or the particular draft code which is attached to the relevant report of the House of Representatives standing committee is not necessarily the code which is the one that should be argued to be supported. But I think we can agree that, at least in theory, there could be merit in the notion of a code.

But the question that is before the House this morning is a very specific question. The question is whether we immediately and urgently ought to bring forward consideration of this proposed code so that the necessary changes can be made to standing orders, so that the code comes into force. There are, in my view, good reasons to be cautious about moving forward with the urgency which is contemplated by this motion. Regrettably, it can sometimes be the case that where this parliament rushes to do something urgently, we miss the opportunity for the more careful and considered reflection that might highlight to us some of the issues which need more careful consideration. A specific issue in my view, which ought to persuade us not to move forward as urgently as this motion proposes, is that as it presently stands there is no analogous draft code under consideration for senators. There is a procedure underway in the other place, where the Committee of Senators' Interests is considering the question of whether a draft code is required and, if so, what it ought to contain.

Therefore, if the motion that is before the House this morning were to be adopted and if the House were to move in accordance with what is urged in this motion, we would end up with the very odd outcome that there would be a code in place which would apply to one class of parliamentarians, but not to another. I think we can all agree that that would lead to undesirable and confusing consequences. In my view that is of itself sufficient reason not to proceed in the terms that the motion proposes because while the relevant senate committee is considering this matter and its applicability to the other place, that report is not due until late November this year. Therefore, in my view, any consideration of action in the immediate terms proposed in this motion would be ill advised. I think more generally that we do need to weigh up carefully the merits of the particular code which is proposed, and whether this collection of statements of higher principle adds the value which its proponents claim.

I note that one of the specific terms of the draft code is that: 'Members must uphold the laws of Australia and ensure that their conduct does not breach or evade these laws.' I respectfully submit that that particular provision of the code adds very little to the current circumstances, in which all of us as members of parliament and Australian citizens are already subject to the laws of Australia. I have not subjected the rest of the code to similar levels of detailed analysis, but I would suggest that that analysis is required before we can make a decision to adopt it.

Debate adjourned.