Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

So these notes may be out of date. Then—thank you, Senator Fifield—that makes the case even more for why it is a glaring omission that the states have these commissions but there is no national one. The Greens private senator's bill will provide the infrastructure to challenge corruption by establishing the National Integrity Commission as an independent—and that is an important word: independent—statutory agency. It would establish three co-dependent offices. The National Office of the Integrity Commissioner would be based largely on the successful New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption model. It would absorb the existing Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, ACLEI, and create a new office of the Independent Parliamentary Adviser to advise MPs and ministers on entitlement claims and the ethical running of their offices that the public rightly expects. We know as members of parliament and senators that often there is a somewhat grey area in understanding the requirements in relation to entitlements, and I think many of us would welcome the ability to be able to go to an independent adviser who could tell us how we should be acting in that situation.

The Australian Greens' bill would also establish a parliamentary joint committee on the National Integrity Commission to see that that commission was accountable to the parliament. The National Office of the Integrity Commissioner would actively prevent and investigate misconduct and corruption in all Commonwealth departments and agencies, and among federal parliamentarians and their staff. As I said, at the moment there is no ability to look into those things. This would fill the largest gap in our country's anticorruption framework. Its powers would be based largely on provisions in the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006.

Unfortunately, for the time being, we do not have such a commission. In the absence of such a body, when legitimate questions have been raised about the Assistant Treasurer's dealings and about the omissions from the statement he made on 28 February, the only means available to the parliament to pursue the matter is to require the Assistant Treasurer to attend the Senate and give a full explanation—today.