Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Professor Steven Kates has written:

An economy works best where the population at large is disgusted by corrupt practices and refuses to accept dishonesty at any level.

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Where dishonest practices become the norm … no economy can … succeed.

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Acceptance of corrupt practice will condemn a society to economic stagnation.

Therefore we owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have stood up against corruption, often at great personal risk. Last week I attended The Torch newspaper's 95th anniversary. I would like to recognise that paper's long and proud history in exposing corruption, and especially the contribution of the late Philip Engisch, the editor of The Torch in the 1950s, with his expose of the 'Mr Big' of Bankstown, Ray Fitzpatrick. It has been written of Fitzpatrick that he was like a Tony Soprano, a thoroughly despicable character guilty of various crimes, from intimidation and racketeering to arson and possibly worse. His links with the New South Wales Labor Party appear to have protected him.

In exposing corruption as editor of The Torch, Philip Engisch was seriously bashed at a cricket match at Bankstown Oval, but that failed to silence him. Fitzpatrick even set up a rival newspaper, trying to drive Engisch out of business, and that failed. When that did not work, The Torch newspaper was firebombed and burnt to the ground. And yet it continued to publish, as it still does today. As for Fitzpatrick, he remains the only Australian, along with his editor, Browne, to have actually been jailed by this parliament. In 1955, through a motion moved by Prime Minister Menzies, this parliament voted to jail him for three months.