Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the government's proposed national anticorruption body have the power to investigate the now Minister for Energy and Environment for securing meetings with the environment department about an investigation into the illegal poisoning of endangered grass on land in which he had an undeclared financial interest?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and I again make the point to the House that our government has considered very carefully the appropriate design considerations in developing the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, which will receive referrals from existing integrity agencies such as the Australian Federal Police and the Ombudsman. There are important design considerations here because we need to make sure that Commonwealth resources are not wasted on referrals which are used for purely political purposes, like the member for Isaacs' nine failed referrals to the Australian Federal Police. Nine times he's engaged in a political stunt.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order is on direct relevance, Mr Speaker. The question is really specific. It refers to the government's proposed anticorruption body, and it refers to a specific instance from a minister and asked whether it would have the power to do it. It does nothing more. There are no alternatives, and there is no opportunity to go where the minister is now going.

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

I appreciate the point the Manager of Opposition Business is making, but I do consider, with these questions—I haven't really said so before—that I do give a little bit more tolerance because, on a strict reading of the standing orders, I could rule the question out in asking for a legal opinion, but I don't want to do that because I think a strict reading of the standing orders would rule most questions out and we'd be out of here within about 15 minutes. I'll listen to the minister. He needs to be relevant to the question which referred to one minister in particular.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was going to the issue of the design considerations which obviously bear on the question the member has asked about the particular hypothetical factual circumstances she's addressed. But the real and sensible risk of frivolous referrals is an important, relevant design consideration because we've seen a pattern of frivolous referrals from the member for Isaacs. There have been nine failed referrals to the Australian Federal Police. I strongly suspect that it's more than the number of times he has been to his own electorate in this term. The answer to the question is clearly that, under the model that we've extensively consulted on, the Commonwealth Integrity Commission will be able to receive referrals relating to allegations involving parliamentarians via two channels: referral by an integrity agency which has become aware of the matter and where there's a reasonable suspicion of a relevant criminal offence, and self-referral by the parliamentarian to whom the issue relates. So we have built this into our model. We have.