Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary debate this is. I think it is fair to say the standards of probity and accountability in the last 11 years of this government have been seriously undermined. We have had electoral laws that have disenfranchised people and we have had the regime for disclosure of political donations watered down. So many changes in this place have sent a very strong message to people like Senator Santoro that it does not matter. It no longer matters: honesty in government, honesty in politics and honesty in political activity have now taken a back seat. I remember that the Prime Minister, when he came up with the ministerial code of conduct, applauded himself on how wonderful this was going to be and said that there would be no probity issues with his ministers. And the ministers quickly fell at that time. I remember Senator Short, Senator Wood and Senator Gibson, who were sacked in very quick succession. And others went as well. In the lower house there were Sharp and Jull, and I think here too we had Senators Cobb and, at one stage, Crichton-Browne. So there is a long history of ignoring standards, putting them in place and finding that there are too many people who need to be sacked as a result of them, so you need to drop some of those requirements. We are very used to it.

So it is little wonder, I think, that Senator Santoro has not taken the ministerial code of conduct seriously. He is one of the ‘born to rule’ amongst us, who think that having shares is a right and proper thing that everybody should do, otherwise you are a bit of a mug. And that thinking has infiltrated all of the activities of people in this place who now defend Senator Santoro’s appalling behaviour.

I thought it was extraordinary today. We have Senator Minchin saying that the Prime Minister acted honourably on this and cannot be expected to know or act on ministers’ affairs. We have heard it again this afternoon. That is precisely why a ministerial code of conduct, which is up to the Prime Minister to administer, will not work. What we need to do is move to a situation where there is a committee of the parliament which determines both the ministerial code of conduct and the code of conduct for senators and members. That should be set up by a joint committee. It should develop a comprehensive code for ministers and members of parliament, as I said, including rules about avoiding conflicts of interest and strong penalties for transgressions.