Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received the following message from the Senate:

The Senate transmits to the House of Representatives the following resolution which was agreed to by the Senate this day:

That the Senate calls on the Federal Government to establish a national anti-corruption commission.

The Senate requests the concurrence of the House of Representatives in this resolution.

Ordered that the message be considered immediately.   

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to agree that this resolution from the Senate be agreed to. Despite the relatively few members of the government attending in this chamber at this time, the agreement to this resolution is a significant development. It is a win for Labor, it is a win for the crossbenches and, more importantly than that, this is a win for the people of Australia. Today, this parliament and the House of Representatives have for the first time endorsed the call for a national integrity commission. That is, the government has now moved its position.

It was in January this year that I announced that a Labor government would establish a national integrity commission, not because I believe this parliament has a particular problem with corruption, because, if any members were aware of it, they would report it. Indeed, the members and senators that I have had the privilege to get to know over the past 10 years, from all points of view, are dedicated people here to make a difference. But I and Labor have been advocating for a national integrity commission because we believe it is essential to rebuild trust in our public institutions. People in Australia are concerned that politics seems to be about politicians looking after themselves and not the people. We have been advocating, therefore, a national integrity commission to rebuild some of that trust that the Australian people have lost in their democratic system. We need a national integrity commission to restore some faith in our politics and our democracy, to make it clear that there's not one rule for the politicians and the Commonwealth government on one hand and another rule for everybody else. I welcome today the Liberal and National government reversing their previous opposition to a national anticorruption commission.

Of course, Australians do have the right to ask if the Prime Minister believes strongly and sincerely in a national integrity commission or if he's just focused on protecting his job. This should not have taken so long. The fact that there are so few members of the government here shows the reluctance that the government has to endorse an anticorruption commission, but nonetheless they have got to the right conclusion. But it should not have taken the fear of losing a vote on the floor of the parliament for the government to be dragged, fingernails on the concrete, into the chamber to endorse an anticorruption commission, a national integrity commission. But it is better to be late than not to be at all supporting an anticorruption commission.

We now have an opportunity for the whole parliament to work together to help design the best possible national integrity commission. Labor has said that a national integrity commission will be based upon the following seven design principles. The commission should operate as an independent statutory body with sufficient resources to ensure it's able to carry out its functions regardless of the government of the day. Next, the commission will be constituted by one commissioner and two deputy commissioners, each of whom would serve for a single fixed five-year term. Further, the commission will have sufficiently broad jurisdiction and freedom of action to operate as a standing royal commission into serious and systemic corruption by Commonwealth parliamentarians or their staff, public servants, statutory officeholders, the Commonwealth judiciary and the Governor-General. The commission should be granted the investigative powers of a royal commission, including search and surveillance powers and the power to compel witnesses and subpoena documents and to carry out its own investigations, with warrant oversight by the Federal Court.

Further, while the presumption will be that the hearings will be held in private, the commission will have discretion to hold hearings in public where it determines it is in the public interest to do so. Labor would continue to consult on the appropriate threshold for such hearings, in conjunction with the government and, indeed, the crossbench. The commission should only be empowered to make findings of fact. Any findings that would constitute criminal conduct should be referred to the AFP or the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions. A bipartisan joint standing committee of parliament would be established to oversee the commission and empowered to require the commission to provide information about its work. This committee should also be responsible for appointing the commissioners, and the commission would report to parliament on its performance annually.

The time has come—in fact, it is long past the hour—for this parliament to establish a national integrity commission. What we seek to do is make a powerful statement about restoring faith in our democracy, and it will be so much stronger and more meaningful if the whole parliament has a say in the design. This has to be about better politics, not more partisanship. That is why I wrote to the current Prime Minister last week proposing that, as a first step, the Attorney-General and the shadow Attorney-General sit down with members of the crossbench to talk about the design principles, including those that I've outlined. I regret to say that the former member for Wentworth, when he was Prime Minister, rejected our offer. I do acknowledge that the current Prime Minister, for all sorts of political reasons, has, nonetheless, arrived at the correct conclusion.

Labor has been willing to cooperate in the national interest; it's now time for the government to do the same. Whilst the government, in its urgent need to seek to avoid a vote that it might lose, has drawn the right conclusion on establishing an anticorruption commission, it is important that it does not therefore cynically sit back and do nothing further on this matter. It is important now that we get on and do the job. If Labor were to win the next election, we would do the job in the manner in which we've outlined, but there is no need to wait until the next election to do it. What we need to do is help restore and rebuild some faith and trust in our democracy. We should treat this mission with the same seriousness that we treat national security and on the same cooperative, bipartisan basis. The people of Australia know this matters. They want better from their parliament, they want more from their government and they deserve much more from the political system.

We understand today is a very significant day: the government has entered minority status and the member for Wentworth is an independent. The government faces the very real prospect that, despite its wishes and its opposition to a national integrity commission, the resolution in the Senate will be supported in the House of Representatives. I am pleased that the government, faced with defeat on the floor of the House of Representatives, has chosen the wiser and more pragmatic path of stopping its opposition to a national integrity commission. But, having said that, we should not now see this change, this reversal of position, this change of heart from the government, as being an excuse to dismiss this matter—to vote for it and then hope that it never comes back. I make this offer to the government: let us move forward and work together to get this done—the Attorney-General and shadow Attorney-General, in consultation with the crossbench, using some of the design principles that we've outlined and other principles as others may see fit to bring forward to the discussion. This is a very, very significant proposition. I move:

That the resolution of the Senate be agreed to.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion. We are now in a power-sharing minority parliament, and the good thing about that is that things can get done that the Australian people want. Things will be put on the agenda even if the government doesn't want them. Even if the government doesn't want them, things will get put on the agenda that the Australian people want. If we act now, we could have a national corruption watchdog by Christmas. The Greens worked with Labor and the other members of the crossbench in the Senate to get this motion through the Senate. The Senate has expressed its view, on behalf of the Australian people, that it wants a federal anticorruption watchdog established.

The House is now about to concur—I hope that the House is about to concur—and I hope the government has finally understood the message. When you have people with such diverse positions on the crossbench—me, the member for Kennedy, the member for Denison, the new member for Wentworth, the member for Mayo and, of course the member for Indi—together with the Labor opposition all saying it is time to establish a national anticorruption watchdog, the message is now ringing loud and clear.

This is something that is close to my heart and close to the heart of the Greens. We were the first ones to introduce a bill into this parliament and also into this House. I applaud the member for Indi and the member for Mayo for now bringing forward a practical way of putting it into practice. Having listened to the comments from the experts, they've put a workable model on the table. We now have an opportunity to restore some trust in the political system.

The idea that somehow corruption stops at the federal level and can only be found at the state level is just fanciful. The argument from the government so far has been: there's no evidence of corruption; therefore, we don't need an anticorruption watchdog. That's exactly why we need one. Seriously, can anyone say, hand on heart, that none of the activity we've seen at the New South Wales level, which has resulted in ministers going to jail, happens here? No, we cannot. The best thing to do is not only to have a transparent and corruption-free democracy but to be seen to have a transparent and corruption-free democracy.

In commending this motion to the House, I'll say one last thing. We established the royal commission into the banks by working together in the Senate, bringing the matter to the House and bringing the government to the point where they had to accept it, where they could not deny the inevitable any longer. In exactly the same way as we've managed to get the government to establish—against their will, kicking and screaming—a royal commission into the banks, I hope that the government will now see the light and take steps towards establishing a federal anticorruption commission, which the people of Australia so desperately want.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members for their contribution. The question of how any government or any parliament might improve the integrity framework at a federal level is a live question and one that should be under constant review. There are potential paths forward that could mean real improvement in that area.

The member for Melbourne has just put to this parliament that the crossbench—and the member for Indi, in particular—have put on the agenda what he described as a working model. In the short period of time that's available, I want to point out to the House a number of reasons why this is an area for the most sober and cautious consideration. I mean no disrespect to the member for Indi in raising some of the issues I'm about to raise. The member for Indi has gone to some effort, at least, to propose a model in great detail, which can be the subject of debate and further consideration. The Leader of the Opposition has talked about design principles. They are of the most scant, vague and, might I say, unconvincing type. Labor have had 12 months to consider this, and coming up with the fact that there will be two deputy commissioners is hardly a massive amount to show for 12 months work. But what demonstrates—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What demonstrates why this requires time and effort is the fact of what the bill that is now before this parliament does. Every member opposite should have absolutely perfect understanding of what the bill now before this parliament does. Under the bill, which the member for Melbourne proposes to be a working model, any public official who did anything that could be said to impair public confidence in public administration—even if that conduct were so minor as to only constitute an administrative irregularity that had some form of employment or disciplinary outcome attached to it, or even if that conduct gave rise only to the most minor civil outcome—would be declared corrupt. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants would potentially be declared corrupt for the most minor of matters.

Let me describe to the House how the bill that has been tabled by the crossbench would work. Under section 9, 'any conduct of any person' that, 'directly or indirectly', affected the impartial exercise of functions of any person or group in the Public Service would be, prima facie, corrupt; anything that any public official did that was a partial exercise of the public official's function would be, prima facie, corrupt; anything that constituted a potential breach of public trust would be, prima facie, corrupt; and any other conduct that could impair public confidence in Commonwealth public administration would be corrupt. That is, so long as any of those four standards met the additional standard that they represented any type of civil liability offence, no matter how minor; or any disciplinary offence, which might include any conceivable form of 'misconduct, irregularity, neglect of duty, breach of discipline or any other matter that constitutes or may constitute grounds for disciplinary action'; or any other reasonable grounds for an employment dismissal; or any conduct where grounds for arguing a substantial breach of an applicable public sector code of conduct existed. If you affected an impartial exercise of the functions of persons of a group in the Public Service; if you, as a public officer, partially exercised your functions; if you breached the public trust; or if you impaired public confidence in the Commonwealth public administration—if any of those four things were said to exist, and even if they represented only the most minor civil penalty or irregularity, that would be declared corrupt conduct.

For example, any public official that it could be argued behaved in a way that constituted a breach of public trust or impaired public confidence in public administration would be liable to a finding of corruption, even if that behaviour otherwise would only have given rise to a small fine or it was an administrative irregularity or there was some breach of discipline or other conceivable form of misconduct. Any public official who did anything that could be said to have impaired public confidence in the public administration of the Commonwealth, even something so minor as to only constitute an administrative irregularity, under this bill that public servant would be corrupt.

Have a moment's thought about what that would actually mean in practice. One recent example springs to my mind. In October 2017, Andrew Probyn, a public servant, an employee of the ABC, described the member for Warringah as the 'most destructive politician of his generation'.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Seconded!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before you second it, you might want to determine whether or not you want to go to jail for corruption.

Opposition members interjecting—

If you don't think this is a real issue, just consider this. Andrew Probyn described the member for Warringah in that way. A complaint was made to ACMA and ACMA found that Andrew Probyn had breached standard 4.1 of the ABC Code of Practice due to impartiality. Under this bill before the House—no ifs, ands or buts—Andrew Probyn would be found to have committed corruption.

Opposition members interjecting—

Read the bill. With absolute clarity, that's what would occur under the terms of the bill that is now before the House. If anything demonstrated the need for enormous caution in pursuing this type of issue, it would be the fact that misdrafting can have such a massive overreach in this area. Any ABC journalist or SBS journalist, as a public servant and public official, who criticised the government in a way that demonstrated impartiality, that breached a code of conduct, that was perhaps found to have constituted contempt or defamation and attracted a civil penalty—under this bill, the very definition of 'corruption' transforms matters of civil import, such as defamation, such as a breach of a code of conduct, into a finding of corrupt conduct.

That's what the bill before us does, and that demonstrates why, in an area like this, an abundance of caution is absolutely necessary. For instance, last year at the AFP there were 922 conduct breaches that were finalised—922 conduct breaches—and 45, under present definitions, were found to be corruption. All of the remainder of those conduct breaches are highly liable to be referred under a model like this for a finding of corrupt conduct. These are matters that are dealt with in an employment based context, sensibly and soberly, at the moment.

There are eight codes of conduct across the public sector for a variety of departments and agencies. If you transform breaches of those codes of conduct that impair public confidence in the Commonwealth, which frankly could be just about everything—

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Young Australians and Youth Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ask someone in the construction industry how they feel about this.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith is warned!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

you are ensuring that what are minor civil matters and employment matters at the moment in the Commonwealth public sector will move to the realm of corrupt conduct.

All you need to do is read what is before this parliament to understand how excessive and how dangerous it is. Let me note also that the most astonishing thing about this bill is that everything that I have described has retrospective application. A civil servant who had engaged in a minor breach of a code of conduct in their department many years ago that had been dealt with internally but, nevertheless, could be said to have impaired public confidence in the conduct of Commonwealth affairs would, many years later, find themselves potentially referred and possibly the subject of a finding of corruption.

Anyone who has observed this area would have seen, in New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland, decent, hardworking public servants the subjects of findings of corruption which were not based on fact, which were found to be false due to errors inside the types of bodies that we are now contemplating. Those men and women had their careers utterly ruined based on no good fact and no good process. This is the time for the most sober and sensible process that we can engage in. That, I am very sad to say, is not indicated in the bill that we have before us today.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Before I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I want to remind members on both sides that this is not question time, where there is a tolerance, to a degree, for interjections. This is normal debate. If they interject as if it were question time, they'll be dealt with as if it were question time.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm not sure that you are very tolerant in question time, but thanks for the warning.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just warn her: I don't have a sense of humour before question time.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm rising today to support the resolution that the message from the Senate be agreed to. I thought I was going to be able to agree with the Attorney-General as well, because he started by saying that this matter deserves sober and cautious consideration. I completely agree that this is a very important motion and a very important matter that does deserve sober and cautious consideration. Sadly, the Attorney-General then went on to take us on a tour through a horror show of what would happen if we introduced a national integrity commission in Australia. If indeed what he was describing, that we'd be looking at 30-year-old breaches of workplace codes of conduct, was the outcome, I'd be the first to line up behind him and say that's not what we want in this country.

But nobody is proposing a national integrity commission that would look at 30-year-old breaches of workplace codes of conduct. What we are saying on this side, what the crossbench are saying and what the Senate has said is that where there is systematic and serious misconduct we ought to have a body in this country that is able to find it, examine it and then refer it, if there is cause for criminal charges, to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, the Australian Federal Police or an appropriate body.

I am one of those people who is proud of the fact that I believe Australia is a corruption-resistant country and that we have low levels of corruption by international standards. I believe our public servants are, by and large, dedicated, good people who do their work with integrity every day. I believe the same of members of this place and the other as well. I believe the vast majority of my colleagues, even the ones I disagree with every day, work hard in the national interest. But we can't put our heads in the sand, because we know, from looking at the state based integrity commissions, that there are exceptions to this principle. We know, from looking at the work of these state based integrity commissions, that when we catch people we do a very good public service, because we restore the faith of our electors in our parliamentary democracy—in democracy itself—by saying that if something goes wrong there is somewhere to complain to and someone who can examine that complaint.

I'm from New South Wales so I've had plenty of opportunity to see up close the work of an effective integrity commission. You can point to plenty of Liberal ministers and members of parliament on the other side who've resigned because of allegations of corruption, including recently when a member who was caught on tape resigned, causing a by-election. But we had our own, on our side. We had two former ministers jailed—one for five years and one for seven years. I and I know my colleagues would be the first to say, 'That is good. That is good for us as a party. That is good for us as a democracy.' We are prepared to be examined with all of the same scrutiny as we wish on our opponents. That is good for our democracy. I've got to say, seeing Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald jailed were two of the happiest days of my life, because it was like cutting a cancer out of the Labor Party. I'm happy that it happened. I am, first of all, prepared to say I don't believe that there is a great deal of corruption in Australia but I'm equally prepared to say that where there are these instances, it is vital for our democracy that we can find them out. I saw the open letter from 32 judges to the Prime Minister about this. I think the point made in that letter is important. It said:

When this confidence and trust is diminished, pessimism, divisiveness and conflict increase; and social cohesiveness is harmed.

We need to reassure Australians that, at a federal level, they can trust the integrity of our democratic processes. The judges went on to say:

Existing federal integrity agencies lack the necessary jurisdiction, powers and know-how to investigate properly the impartiality and bona-fides of decisions made by, and conduct of, the federal government and public sector.

These 32 people are in a better-than-average position to have an opinion on this and to know the difference that a national integrity commission would make.

The member for Indi has proposed a way forward here. We have laid out our own principles that we would apply, and the Leader of the Opposition went through those seven principles. In fact, the integrity committee that has been sponsored by the Australia Institute has proposed a number of other ways forward in this area. I think the fact that we have three different sets of proposals shows how important it is to take a bipartisan approach here. The Attorney-General said that we should have a sober and cautious approach to this, and I agree. The best way that we can have a sober and cautious approach to designing a national integrity commission is for there to be a bipartisan approach, where the government—after rejecting the need for a national integrity commission for as long as they have—set aside those objections and agree to work with us, the member for Indi and others on the crossbench, on a detailed approach that looks at the strengths and weaknesses of the various state integrity commissions, looks at what can be improved in those state commissions and proposes publicly an approach that can be examined by people who have an interest, like these 32 former judges, like the National Integrity Committee that's been established.

We can have a public debate that looks at a really robust approach that has strong investigative powers and balance that with the fact that anybody accused of impropriety ought to be accorded natural justice, ought to have the opportunity of properly answering those allegations before they're on the front page of a newspaper. Balancing those approaches, we can do that. The Attorney-General has gone through a whole lot of horror scenarios of what might happen. It is important that we get this right. It is absolutely critical that we get the detail right. But, surely, Attorney-General, the fact that you have concerns about the member for Indi's specific proposal is a reason for us all to work together across the chamber to get the detail right, not a reason to stick our heads in the sand and pretend there has never been, and never will be, corruption at a federal level. It is not beyond us to get this legislation right.

We know that this is yet another area in which the people are ahead of the government. We know that about 80 per cent of Australians support some type of national integrity commission. I think, Attorney-General, when so many Australians have enough concern to support a national integrity commission, it is important that we ask ourselves as political leaders, first of all, what we're doing wrong to see such concern amongst the people we represent; and secondly, how we can allay those concerns. What can we do together to design a national integrity commission with strong powers that can reassure Australians that we continue to live in one of the least corrupt countries on earth?

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm one of the rare people in this place that has actually been through the grinding machine. I was one of the two ministers in Queensland who made the decision to bring on the Fitzgerald inquiry, which changed the politics of Queensland—hopefully forever, but certainly for the last 20 or 30 years. There were 54 murders or murder-suicides that had taken place in Queensland, and it turned out that they were attributable to one small group of policemen. It was referred to as 'the joke' in North Queensland by Steve Austin, the famous journalist. It was referred to as the 'Crooked Creek Cattle Company' in North Queensland. The first person to make noise was an ALP member. When I rang him up about it, he said he knew nothing about it and continued to say he knew nothing about it, and then hung up on me on the telephone. He was obviously terrified. But in an environment where 54 people have been murdered, it gets very, very scary indeed. So a decision was taken to have the inquiry.

If we'd had the Criminal Justice Commission, as we call it in Queensland, seven or eight or nine years before, would we have stopped all of those murders?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were in Joh's cabinet.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection. I was in Joh's cabinet. I was under attack by the corrupt coppers. I went to the person you would naturally go to—the commissioner of police—to put the objections in. Well, as it turns out, according to the courts, the commissioner of police was in fact the source of their protection. He wasn't the centre of the corruption, but he was most certainly the protector that had enabled the corruption to bloom. If I'd had the Criminal Justice Commission to go to, I still think I'd have probably gone to the commissioner—after all, I was a senior minister in the government; that was the natural person to go to. We had no idea, at that stage, that he was the source. That's one of the things with corruption—you don't know who's on whose side. That's the scary part about it.

The good part from the point of view of this legislation—I applaud the member for Indi for precipitating the whole thing. I think we crossbenchers could claim the credit for the banking inquiry; I don't think that that's entirely unreasonable. Labor was there for six years or however long they were there for, and they had no intention of having a banking inquiry, so we precipitated it. I want to praise both sides of the House for having a bipartisan approach, and I would plead with both sides of the House that there needs to be a bipartisan approach here. We congratulate the member for Indi for precipitating the thing. I don't think anything would have happened if she hadn't precipitated it. I plead now for a bipartisan approach. The polls are indicating a Labor government is coming in—you blokes will be in the hot seat and the Liberals won't be. There's no point in going after the Liberals if they're not in government. There's plenty of point in going after them.

Let me come back to Queensland. If a CJC had been there, it's possible that those murders would not have occurred. The murders, by the way, are a matter of public record. It's not my opinion; it's all a matter of public record. That they were related to 'the joke' is a matter of public record. When the Fitzgerald inquiry came in and was subsequently rolled over into what was called the Criminal Justice Commission, you had this witch burning. There was a wild bushfire raging out of control and it was going to burn a hell of a lot of people. One of them was a Labor premier. He and two National Party ministers that were under attack got cancer. Two of the three died. I don't doubt for a moment that cancer is somewhat related to extreme stress, and that's what occurred in these cases. A number of people were burnt subsequently. A minister, Brian Austin, went to jail because he had used his government car to go up and visit his kids at a private school in New South Wales on the weekend. This is a matter of public record. Once the fire starts, there are going to be an awful lot of people burnt—and an awful lot of innocent people.

There was a judge stood down in Queensland. There was not the slightest scintilla of evidence ever produced against that judge. Not at any stage. Nothing. He was hung, drawn and quartered—his whole life destroyed—with not the slightest scintilla of evidence. But everyone knew why they were out to get him: because he was not a member of the club, the legal establishment that ran Queensland. They all went to rich private schools. They had all mixed with each other. They all knew each other. They were a very tight-knit club. And here was a bloke whose daddy was a Sicilian cane cutter from North Queensland, who had been to a state school and was suddenly thrown in as a judge. 'We can't have this. We can't have this.' They had the judges group assess him. Surprise, surprise, the judges group decided that he wasn't a proper person. But I just use that as an example.

The Premier of Queensland—whatever else I might say about him—was a man of unquestionable honesty and decency, but there was a person in there that just hated him. Now, once you get a Criminal Justice Commission or an ICAC—you understand this. Totally innocent—but it gets in there, and then the headline in the newspaper is, 'Minister under attack: referred to the Criminal Justice Commission.' From then on, your name is besmirched. Now, for those of you who like reading history books, you would have read about the Stuarts Star Chamber—a kangaroo court we'd call it here in Australia. You've read about the House Un-American Activities Committee in the United States—rampant McCarthyism—where hundreds of people had their lives totally destroyed by a bushfire out of control. We could go through hundreds of examples of this. But what happened in the aftermath of the Fitzgerald inquiry was horrific to me, and I had to take responsibility for it, because it was Bill Gunn's decision but he needed my support to get it through cabinet. We were the two that made the decision to bring it down.

I urge the parliament to consider: the greatest upheaval on corruption in recent Australian history was in Queensland—fairly or unfairly. Fifty-four people were murdered or murder-suicided. Fifty-four people—all a matter of public record—attributed to 'the joke' or, if you like, the 'Crooked Creek Cattle Company'. On the other hand, myriads of innocent people had their lives totally destroyed by what followed afterwards, including a Labor premier—a man whose honesty and integrity would never, ever be questioned in the public arena, yet the damage to him was colossal.

So I find it very difficult because I can see the need for it but, on the other hand, I can see the grave dangers that exist here. I think a lot can be done to make it in camera, to do everything humanly possible to make it secret, so that some petty vendetta that some public servant had against some other public servant 20 years ago is not dredged up and then used to destroy a person who is totally innocent. I could give you case after case, but I'm not going to do that—time is too short.

So I urge a bipartisan approach. I thank and congratulate the member for Indi. If she does nothing else in her life, this would be a great achievement and contribution to the Australian nation. We came through. It wasn't what we wanted with the banking inquiry, but there was a banking inquiry and it's done a hell of a lot of good. My colleague sitting on my left here—appropriately!—deserves a lot of the credit, as do a number of other backbenchers. So we need to be bipartisan. There is one thing that is absolutely a necessity—total secrecy. We know that that's not really a reality, but we can do a lot to ensure secrecy. I think that that is vitally important. But I urge this House to just say you have the memory, that it is there, of what occurred in Queensland—54 deaths on the one hand and, on the other hand—the negative side—hundreds of innocent people with their lives totally destroyed.

Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for sharing those stories with us. I also acknowledge the wisdom that he brings to this particular process. I actually want to address the what and how of this. Minister, I welcome your comments and certainly those from the Labor side. To me, the art of parliament is doing exactly what we've done here—you make your best effort and, as a private member, you bring the legislation to the House and ask, 'Okay, how can we, together, make this better?' Minister, I ask you: what will you do to help us make this legislation better? Certainly, I'm open to the critique that you bring to it. I also acknowledge your expertise in this area and also your access to your department. Clearly the whole parliament is looking to you to look at this legislation and make it better. I don't think it's appropriate, at this stage, to critique it in the detail which obviously needs to happen, but today what we're asking from you is the higher moral ground. We're asking: 'What is the government going to do about this? What is the government's position on this? What would it take for the government to come to what has been the most generous of speeches by the crossbench and Labor and work together, to do what we know the Australian people want—which is for us to work together on a thing that matters to them, which is trusting institutions?' So, Minister, I'm really pleased that you're here and you're part of the debate, but my call to you is: can you please tell us what, when and how?

I pick up the member for Melbourne's comment of, 'Could we do it by Christmas?' because we all know, if this doesn't get resolved and we go to an election, how really bitterly this will be fought out. The stories of corruption that my colleague from Queensland tells us that we know are not very far below the surface will all come to the fore and we will spend our time arguing the detail and not doing what we know the people of Australia want us to do—work together and work in harmony. That's what we need to do.

The second thing I want to say is a little bit about why I'm so passionate about this. The background for me is I'm a farmer by trade and inclination. My profession is agriculture. I really, really care about how agriculture is run in this country. I've had a lifetime of work with the department of agriculture and the public servants in it. So you could imagine my enormous distress when I read the Moss review that came down recently. I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, David Littleproud, the member for Maranoa, for doing that review. But it showed us what is currently happening in the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, which we love, about an issue that farmers particularly care about—the welfare of our sheep and our livestock—and we could see that not only is the department not able to do its job but people have been intimidated and there's been a significant failure of the application of the regulations that needed to happen.

So, for me, the main job of the government is to make sure that we make rules, that they're enforced, and that the regulation happens. I welcome the member for Farrer to the chamber for this bit: in live export we've had a huge failing of regulation. A commission like that we're talking about is exactly what could have helped very early. The people who knew there was a problem could have gone to this commission and said: 'We've got problems here. We don't think it's corrupt, but things aren't working out. Could you do an investigation?' We could have spared ourselves so much of the trouble we've had and the huge community angst around how the live sheep export business is being operated because our community in the Public Service didn't have a place to go to get it addressed. So that Moss example, for me, is just an absolute standout of why we need this sort of commissioner and why we need it now.

Minister, I take on board your comments about the definition and about retrospectivity. If I could make a comment about retrospectivity and why it's in the bill, I, for one, am not a fan of retrospectivity—ever—but I know with corruption that there's often history—not always but frequently there's a story that needs to be understood. If we don't give this commission power to actually look at the history, to look at the story, of what we basically call deep-rooted corruption that has a past, we can't address it in the future. I'm really happy to work with you, Minister, your department and your staff about how we can do that better. But we can't just pretend that we're only going to look at things that go wrong from here on into the future, because so many things that we know don't work—for example, in the department—are because there's a history of how things were done, a history of how people were treated and a history of fear. You've actually got to do some degree of retrospectivity to address that. I would be really pleased to work with you and your department to get some words about how we could make this better in the future, but I don't want to ignore the past.

I welcome your presence in the debate, Minister, but, from the bottom of my heart, I call out: 'Come back and tell us this week that the government, across the parliament, will accept the offer from Labor and from us to work together,' because, truly, it's only the government stopping this happening. We know that you're basically in favour of it. We know that the previous Prime Minister was basically in favour of it. We suspect that most of your backbench are in favour of it. What we're asking for now is some leadership in how we work together to get what the country wants, which is the ability to trust that we in this parliament can actually work in a way that gives people trust in our processes and our integrity in working together. I'll leave my comments there but look forward to continuing the conversation with you.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This morning, we talked about Transparency International Australia and the really good work they did to assist the member for Indi with her bill. We talked about the work of the Australia Institute and, more broadly, the desire of the nation to ensure that we have integrity: integrity in this place, integrity in the Public Service, integrity across all reaches of decision-making. I concur with the member for Kennedy and say, firstly, we absolutely need bipartisan support for this. The member for Indi is right: the only team that is holding this back is the government. I think it's fair to say the rest of the parliament want us to move forward.

It's got a feeling of deja vu about it, doesn't it? It's a feeling of deja vu going back to the banking royal commission. Scores of times, the government voted against that. The government said, 'Nothing to see here!' 'Rank socialism' is what a former Prime Minister said with respect to a banking royal commission. But what we have uncovered is that it was much needed and should have happened years ago. I believe the same will happen with the National Integrity Commission.

If the Prime Minister doesn't want to listen to the crossbench, if he doesn't want to listen to really everyone in the parliament apart from his own frontbench and if the Prime Minister is not paying any attention to what happened in Victoria over the weekend, I would urge the Prime Minister and indeed the government to listen to the story of the 34 former Australian judges—eminent people—who in quite an unprecedented manner wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister for the establishment of a national integrity commission. I wish to read into Hansard just some of the letter:

Confidence and trust in government and public institutions is at an all-time low. When this confidence and trust is diminished, pessimism, divisiveness and conflict increase; and social cohesiveness is harmed. As a result, the economy and the welfare of all Australians suffers. Ultimately, as international experience has shown, democracy itself is threatened and may be irreparably damaged. Governments ignore at their peril demands by citizens to combat corruption with vigor.

A major cause of the current deterioration in trust is the suspicion that corruption permeates many governmental decisions and actions. Corruption, broadly understood in this context, occurs when those in public office place private interests over the public good. The avoidance of corruption is an essential organising principle of our representative democracy.

Secrecy is at the core of corrupt conduct. Electronic communications and advanced developments in IT provide formidable means of concealing misconduct, which is difficult and expensive to combat. Those involved in large-scale corruption are usually well-organised, experienced, astute and wealthy. A well-funded and properly resourced national anti-corruption agency, with overall jurisdiction to investigate all public decisions and conduct, and with appropriate powers and protections, is needed to combat them. The price of freedom, and freedom includes living in a society free from corruption, is eternal vigilance.

… … …

The National Integrity Committee has outlined a benchmark for designing a model integrity commission. It must have a broad jurisdiction and strong investigative powers, including public hearings, in order to adequately investigate and expose corruption and misconduct.

If the government doesn't want to listen to the crossbench, and if the government uses their first opportunity to talk about an integrity commission to critique the crossbench instead of leading from the front, I urge the Attorney-General: for goodness sake, lead from the front on this. If you're not going to listen to us, if you are not going to listen to the crossbench, if you're not going to listen to the Australian people, for goodness sake why don't you at least listen to 34 eminent former High Court and Federal Court justices? Thank you.

Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It goes without saying that there's way too much questionable stuff going down in this country right now. So many decisions are being made by governments, by politicians and by senior officials that have question marks hanging over them that it is understandable that the community is concerned. One recent example is the decision to grant almost half a billion dollars to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. There was the decision not that long ago to grant Foxtel, I think, it was $30 million, for reasons that are still unexplained. We go back some years, but it's a hot topic currently, to the issue of the spying on the East Timorese parliament and the fact that the government is now going after the whistleblower and his lawyer. Crucially, there is still the unaddressed matter that the then Minister for Foreign Affairs and the then secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, who both were involved in as much as they would have had oversight of the spying operation, but yet the minister and the secretary both went on and worked for Woodside Petroleum.

In the case of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, in the case of the money for Foxtel and in the case of a former Minister for Foreign Affairs and a former secretary for Foreign Affairs going on and doing paid work for a company that their actions had materially benefited there might be a really good explanation. Perhaps in all of those cases there was no misconduct and they were all good decisions by good people. But we don't know, because we don't have any means to examine those sorts of issues. In a day and age when people are understandably more cynical than ever, of course people will start drawing conclusions that there was misconduct.

I'm reminded that in the eight years I've been in this parliament, and before that, there have been dozens upon dozens of changes to our security legislation, including greater powers for the state and greater intrusiveness, like mandatory metadata retention. Whenever these sorts of things are sold to the public by governments, the government says, 'If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.' I will make the point again: the government says, 'If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.' So why then is the current government so anti some sort of federal anticorruption or integrity authority? If the government has nothing to hide it will have nothing to fear from the establishment of such an organisation.

It is regrettable that the government has only been dragged to this point, kicking and screaming, because of the political reality of this parliament. The fact is that if there were a vote on this motion today and the government were to stick to its guns it would probably vote against it and try to sell its decision to the public. But the public would be outraged, so it looks like the government is going to roll over on this motion but probably do nothing about it.

The government criticise the member for Indi's bill, which she introduced this morning and which has been seconded by the member for Mayo. Instead of criticising what the crossbench have put forward, why don't they actually come to the table, exactly as the member for Mayo has pleaded with them to do, and offer some amendments? If they're going to vote in favour of this motion because they've been forced to vote in favour of this motion by the reality of the numbers in the parliament, why don't they actually show a bit of backbone, lead from the front, as has been requested by the member for Mayo, come back to the parliament with some amendments and make it better? Make it perfect. We don't have the resources on the crossbench to come up with the perfect solution, but we can come up with a really solid start to an issue like this. Then, with all their resources, they can amend it and improve it. But I bet they don't.

Then they'll wonder why they'll be struggling to win an election in six months time and struggling to regain the trust of the community. No wonder the community is so cynical about politicians. We only had a banking royal commission because the government was dragged, kicking and screaming, to that point. It is no wonder the government is so on the nose and no wonder politicians are so on the nose when it is patently clear that the majority of members of the community want some form of integrity or anticorruption body.

We in this place have no-one but ourselves to blame that we are held in such low regard by members of the community. There are just so many excuses: it would become some sort of mechanism for disgruntled public servants to go after their peers, or some means to go after a bureaucrat from 30 years ago. No it won't. That's not the intention. And if there is some sort of weakness in the current bill which would allow that, let's deal with that weakness. Let's close that hole in the current bill.

I was really touched by the point made by the member for Indi, saying, 'Let's work together.' Can't we once, in the public interest and in the best interests of our constituents, come together as one in this place and come up with something that's a good thing? Why is it that everything one side in this place suggests is opposed by the other side? Why is it that just about everything from the crossbench is always ignored? Why can't governments be more open-minded to the talent and ideas in this place and be open-minded to the public interest and what the public wants? This is just another example of where governments are out of step with majority public opinion.

I could rattle off so many things. The public want strong action on climate change—ignored by the government. The public want to shut down live animal exports—ignored by the government. The public want strong action as far as gambling reform goes—ignored by the government. The public want a strong and effective anticorruption body—ignored by the government. It will be ignored by the government because the only reason the government will support this motion is the numbers in this parliament, and none of us on the crossbench or on the opposition benches have any confidence that the government will actually go on and do something about it.

Through you, Mr Speaker, to the Attorney-General: you're a decent man. Take this bill that's been tabled today by the member for Indi, allow it to be brought on for debate and bring some amendments back to this place. Let's improve it. Let's make it better. We won't be offended even if you table your own bill now. We want the outcome. This isn't about who owns this or whose name is on the front of it; it's about the outcome. Through you, Speaker, I implore the Attorney-General: either bring some amendments back to this place on the bill that's before the House, or bring your own bill into the House. I tell you what: it will be popular in the community and it will improve your stocks politically. Surely you want that? Surely the government wants to get off 45 per cent or 55 per cent in the next Newspoll, where it seems to be stuck? Act in the public interest. Swallow your pride. People will respect you for it. People will respect you a lot for it, for the fact that you say, 'Okay, we've come on board.' That's what the public needs.

No more excuses. It's not good enough to say, 'This will just become a mechanism to go after public servants from 30 years ago.' It's not good enough to say, 'Look at the problems, say, in New South Wales with their ICAC,' or for the member for Kennedy to single out some of the problems that were created in Queensland in his experience when he was in the state parliament. In fact, we can leverage off those problems that have occurred over time and in other jurisdictions. We can examine those case studies, find out where the weaknesses are and make our federal integrity commission the best in the world. We're actually lucky that we have these examples of problems with other anticorruption bodies in the states in this country and overseas. We can learn from them, and the public will thank us for it. That's all I'll say.

There is clearly a strong public interest in a federal anticorruption body. We're having issue after issue where questions have been raised and not addressed. Why exactly did the Great Barrier Reef Foundation get almost half a billion dollars? Why did Foxtel get $30 million? Why did a former foreign minister and a former secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade go and work for Woodside Petroleum, which was a material beneficiary of a spying operation that the former foreign minister and former secretary of that department had an association with? In all those examples, maybe everyone acted legally and with integrity. But we just don't know, because we don't have a body to examine these sorts of cases.

It goes without saying that not only do we have to have good and clean governments but we have to be seen to have good and clean governments. In fact, if we set up an integrity commission and it looked at a 100 different issues and in every case it found that no-one did anything wrong, that would actually still be a good outcome. It would still be a reason to have the integrity commission, not to not have the integrity commission, because the public could have confidence that governance in this country is done cleanly and with integrity. I applaud the Labor Party for running with this issue now. If you do become the government in six months, the community will be expecting the new government to act on this and to speedily establish some sort of federal integrity commission.

Question agreed to.