Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. Congratulations on tabling the National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill today. Under this bill, the commission's hearings will be in private unless the commissioner decides it's in the public interest and there are exceptional circumstances that justify a public hearing. Why is the exceptional circumstances test necessary when it could lead to protracted legal challenges and hide corruption for longer?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for her question, and I thank her for the intense engagement that she has shown to this topic, from really the day in which she arrived in this parliament, and pursuing the matter through the course of the last parliament with a private member's bill and making sure that there's been active debate in our country on what an anti-corruption commission should look like.

We brought a bill to the parliament today to establish a national anti-corruption commission. I think today is a very good day for this parliament, it's a good day for the nation and, as I've already said, it honours the government's commitment to legislate a national anti-corruption commission this year. It's the single biggest integrity reform this parliament has seen for decades.

Going to the honourable member's question, as she has said, the National Anti-Corruption Commission will have the discretion to hold public hearings, in relation to an investigation, where the commission decides that exceptional circumstances justify the holding of the hearing in public and it is in the public interest to do so.

The key to this is that all of the anticorruption commissions that have been established in Australia have had to make a decision—one of them, in fact, does not have the power to hold public hearings at all, but the others all have to make a discretionary decision as to whether or not to hold a hearing in public. The experience of all these anticorruption commissions has been that the overwhelming majority of hearings that they hold are, in fact, in private. That's for very good reason. It's because commissions like this have to be concerned with whether or not there would be an unfair prejudice to people's reputation. They have to be concerned with whether or not there would be an unfair prejudice to someone's privacy or, indeed, to their safety.

There are a whole range of factors, and, as I mentioned yesterday in the House, there's always a concern about whether exposing a matter in public is going to prejudice a forthcoming criminal prosecution or whether it's going to prejudice an existing criminal prosecution. We've given careful consideration to the question of public hearings, unlike—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Indi, on a point of order.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is a point of order on relevance, Mr Speaker. I asked the Attorney-General if this would lead to extended legal proceedings and delay corruption investigations.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was coming to the second part of the honourable member's question. Subject to the standing order about not giving legal advice, we've very carefully considered the question of whether or not this discretion, vested in the commissioner, might give rise to legal proceedings. We are confident that this won't be a matter that is going to be readily litigated.