Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would have thought that the case for a National Integrity Commission makes itself. That there is a need for MPs and the Public Service to be investigated by an independent commission is so obvious, really, that I cannot understand why we are having to argue the case for it. I would have thought that the facts and the situation make the case themselves.

Every state now has an anticorruption commission. The first to be established, in 1989, was the Independent Commission Against Corruption. That was 25 years ago. The federal government is now the only jurisdiction without this infrastructure to confront corruption. Every time wrongdoing is exposed, the public has to lobby—and members of parliament get involved in that lobbying too—for that wrongdoing to be investigated. When the lobbying is successful, we see one-off reviews or ad hoc investigations launched.

I heard Senator Macdonald say, 'Well, Senator Milne, you could just report it and you can take it to the authorities.' Senator Milne clearly articulated an example where she has been pursuing what she strongly suspects is corruption but has been unable to get anywhere with it

If we had this body in place, she would have been able to go to that body to get them to have a look at it. If there was nothing there, that could have been identified, but if there was something there, that could actually have been dealt with. Senator Milne was clearly articulating the case in the Commonwealth Public Service. It is not good enough for MPs and senators who get involved to have to keep lobbying to get something that stinks dealt with. That is not effective, it is not transparent and it is not holding the federal government accountable. We need a permanent commission set up so that we do not have to continually lobby to get something investigated, to get a review set up, or to get a Royal Commission set up.

I think back to when we had to keep pushing for the wheat scandal, in 2006, to be investigated. The amount of lobbying and work that we had to do across Australia to get the government to finally took into that was enormous. If we had had this commission in place, we would not have had to do that lobbying. It was clearly an issue, as the Royal Commission found, that needed to be investigated.

As I said, we need this permanent commission to prevent corruption occurring and to investigate claims as they arise. For the third time in three consecutive parliaments the Greens have a bill before the parliament to create this office, to crack down on public sector corruption and to promote integrity in our public institutions. It is clear that we need to have this body in place, and also it is very important that we have public confidence in our public institutions. It is absolutely critical.

Our bill sets up the National Office of Integrity Commissioner, and it is modelled largely on the successful New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption. It is based on provisions in the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006. The bill would establish a National Integrity Commissioner. It would be concerned with corruption in relation to public officials and Commonwealth agencies and it would have full investigative powers including conducting public and private hearings, which of course are very important, and it would have the ability to summon any person or agency to produce documents and to appear before the commission. Again, that is a very important function. The new office of Independent Parliamentary Adviser, which is contained in the bill, would be established to advise MPs and ministers on entitlement claims and on the ethical running of their office, which of course the public totally expect from their representatives in both houses of parliament. The adviser would also be tasked to develop a legally binding code of conduct for MPs and senators for the parliament to adopt. Of course the very important word there is 'legally'.

We believe that integrity, accountability and openness in politics are vital and critical to a healthy democracy. To have an engaged public, voters need to trust what the politicians are saying. I understand that the public are very cynical at the moment because of all the things they are seeing in the media around the country, but I also understand their cynicism. I am sure that there are a lot of other senators and MPs in this place who are getting bombarded with emails about the trust with the community having been broken, yet again, because of the government going back on their commitments to not change the pension, to not cut funding on health, and to not cut funding of education. Of course all those commitments have been broken. This government's actions have undermined the trust of the community and their willingness to believe that the politicians are doing the things in their best interests. Of course that is a slightly different matter, but it does all add to the mix of the community needing to have trust in their politicians, to have trust that the institutions are not corrupt and to understand that there is an institution that can look into those issues as they arise and provide a check at the national level.

I just do not get it. I do not get why it is not obvious to some that we need this commission. It is obvious that we needed it in the states and they now have various forms of commissions in place. Why would anyone rationally think that we do not need it at a national level? We need to have trust throughout our political system, and that includes throughout the institutions at the federal level. We want to see an end to deals for mates which clearly permeate a lot of decision-making. We need to ensure that empowered citizens keep an eye on their government and on government institutions instead of the government keeping a secret eye on them. Only when we have this in place, I believe, will the community have a sense that they have a body that they can go to and a body that they can trust that does keep an eye on corruption and deal-making with our politicians and in our institutions.

As I said, we believe the case for this commission is very clear. Senator Macdonald did his usual thing again. Instead of arguing the issue he tried to smear the Greens in particular. He never misses an opportunity for that. He brought up the donation issue, yet again. When the current government were in opposition, they did everything they could to attack us about that. They sent it to the Privileges Committee. Of course that trick failed completely when the Privileges Committee found that there was absolutely nothing wrong. So, instead of addressing the issue, Senator Macdonald tried to smear the people proposing the bill.

You have to wonder why the government do not embrace this bill. They can see what has happened in New South Wales. They can see what has happened elsewhere. Why doesn't the government embrace this? They have not taken it on and the previous government did not take it on. Senators Faulkner and Cameron have argued articulately why we need this form of commission in place. Embrace this; we need this. We need to build the confidence of the community in this political body and in our public institutions at the federal level. No-one can argue, just because it is the Commonwealth, that everything is squeaky clean. They cannot argue that. We believe it is time that we put this commission in place. Of course I commend the bill to the house and urge senators to rethink their support for this bill.