Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen over the last few years that the performance of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales has had many beneficial outcomes for the good governance of New South Wales. More recently, however, we have seen that the ICAC has touched on federal political figures, and yet there is no federal body to which the wrongdoing can be put to to be further investigated. That is really what lies at the heart of what is before us here today, the National Integrity Commission Bill 2013.

Labor has always had the view that we would support a broad approach to anticorruption consistent with our longstanding Labor policy. I agree with Senator Milne that corruption does hurt communities and that we do need to build trust in our communities. An independent anticorruption body can provide a mechanism to ensure that we have the best governance processes and that people are acting at all times in line with the trust that they have been endowed with in their positions. Senator Smith talked of royal commissions as being the best way forward to look at some of the issues to do with governance and trust. But an independent anticorruption body could be a much more effective body to deal with such issues facing society than the ad hoc and very costly approach of royal commissions, which the current government seems to have a fetish for.

Given the present scandal infecting the federal branch of the Liberal Party, I think there is a clear need for a focus on campaign finance. If we are looking at an anticorruption body, I think that we should have a broader debate about our donation laws, their enforcement and their oversight. This is where such a body could play an effective role. Such a body could even look at the administering of our electoral funding system. This should be given serious consideration.

We must review the operation of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption and consider whether there are ways in which it could be improved upon. We must review its procedures. We should make sure that any federal anticorruption body is capable of protecting the innocent and securing not just embarrassment but convictions for the guilty.

Labor has never objected to a federal independent anticorruption body in principle. We have had concern that there was in the past perhaps no clear case for the necessity of such a body. In the last Labor government we were very serious about tackling corruption at the federal level. There was not during our time in government any clear evidence of the nature, extent and sources of corruption at a Commonwealth level. We supported improving Commonwealth anticorruption efforts which would make it easier to prevent, detect and respond to corruption. We strongly supported existing anticorruption agencies, the Australian Crime Commission being one of those along with the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. We took a national anticorruption plan to the last election—a plan on which the Abbott government has taken absolutely no action. But, in light of the recent revelations, Labor is open to considering a federal anticorruption body. If there is any serious question of significant corruption in the federal sphere, we are of course open to the full suite of measures which might be necessary to restore public trust.

Indeed, a standing federal anticorruption body deserves consideration as one such measure. But, in looking at the Greens's National Integrity Commission Bill 2013, a private senator's bill, before us, we see that it is similar to others that the Greens have introduced. I think the National Integrity Commissioner Bill was introduced by Senator Bob Brown in June 2010 and reintroduced when parliament reconvened after the August 2010 election. Then I think there was the National Integrity Commissioner Bill 2012 introduced by Adam Bandt MP. So those bills lapsed without having been debated when the 43rd parliament was prorogued. But I understand none of the bills have been considered in substance by a committee. The House of Representatives Selection Committee concluded that the 2012 bill was an appropriation bill and could not proceed in its current form. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs recommended that the 2012 bill not proceed prior to the establishment of a joint select committee to investigate the feasibility and the cost of a national integrity commission, considering amongst other things the threshold issue of whether such a body was needed.

I think that particular House committee's recommendation was a very good point to refer back to. That is where the establishment of a joint select committee could be one of the ways forward to actually consider further the need, structure and idea of there being a federal independent anticorruption body. I actually think there is quite a lot of merit in that way to proceed.

But we know that, for the first time, this current National Integrity Commission Bill has now come on for debate. It has not gone to any committee. There has been no serious consultation out in the community about this bill and its substance or even any kind of discussion. So, though Labor is very much open to the principle of looking at a federal independent commission against corruption body, this particular bill, I believe, is slightly premature in that sense.

But I do want to make it very clear that, in light of these recent revelations that we have been made aware of in the federal Liberal Party, there certainly is a need to have that debate and discussion. And why is that? Because there is new cause for concern about corruption in Australian politics. I think there is something very sick and rotten going on in the New South Wales branch of the Liberal Party, the home branch of both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard allegations that illegal political donations have been funded to the New South Wales Liberal Party via various slush funds. A longstanding Liberal staffer has confessed to ICAC that enormous sums of money, including from property developers banned from making political donations under New South Wales law, were laundered through sham organisations Eight by Five and the Free Enterprise Foundation before being passed on to the New South Wales Liberal Party. ICAC in just a few months forced the resignations of former New South Wales Liberal Premier Barry O'Farrell and two New South Wales Liberal cabinet ministers. New South Wales Liberal police minister Mike Gallacher, the senior law minister in the government of Australia's biggest state—New South Wales—and the man tasked with fighting corruption and crime, was forced to resign due to revelations made through the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Most damningly, it has caused federal Liberal Senator and former Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos to be stood aside by the Prime Minister. Evidence given in ICAC has now indicated Australian Water Holdings made donations to Eight by Five while Senator Sinodinos served as the company's chairman or deputy chairman. As Neil Chenoweth wrote in the Financial Review on 7 May:

Any investigation of NSW state finances inevitably involves some scrutiny of federal fund-raising. It’s done by the same people, the same structures, there are constant crossovers.

That in itself reveals that this has now become a federal issue, and that is why we do need to have a broader debate and discussion to consider whether we need a federal independent anticorruption body in this country.

These current scandals necessarily call into question the integrity of federal Liberal politicians in this country. It calls into question the integrity of our political finance laws. As I said that the outset, that is where I believe that any consideration regarding a federal independent anti-corruption body needs to consider the idea of looking at our federal electoral funding system. At the moment, we know that the Australian Electoral Commission certainly does not have those investigative powers, but it is something that a national independent anti-corruption body could have. It is something that could be investigated, and it is something that I believe should be considered if we are going to talk about a national integrity commission.

This bill, however, does have three components that need to be addressed: a federal body based on the New South Wales ICAC model; the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, in its present form, which, I might say, works very effectively; and an independent parliamentary adviser to advise MPs on ethics and entitlements and develop a parliamentary code of conduct. I think the creation of an independent parliamentary adviser is not necessarily good policy in general. In any case, whether such an office should be housed within a watchdog body is open to question. That is something I think needs broader discussion and consideration. I am not sure if Senator Milne and the Greens party have considered that. There are also open questions about how a number of federal integrity bodies, including ACLEI, ought to be integrated with this particular body in this bill or situated alongside any kind of federal ICAC body.

These are some of the issues that I think need to be considered when we look at the bill before us. As I said that the outset, Labor is very much in support of a broad approach to anti-corruption. That has been a longstanding Labor policy position. Given the recent scandals in the New South Wales Liberal Party that have now affected some federal Liberal parliamentarians, we need to consider how we move forward and ensure that we do have the best independent bodies available to us, be it at the state level or the federal level, that can deal with this sort of thing. We want to hold our heads up high as a nation, knowing that we have some of the best laws in place to ensure good governance, good ethics and integrity. That is something I am sure we can all agree on in this place.