Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Responding to corruption and the bribing of foreign public officials is something this government takes very seriously. The government has a zero tolerance approach to corruption in all its forms and is already taking significant steps to address this issue. We have strong laws to prevent corrupt activity both domestically and overseas, and in recent years Australia has dramatically stepped up efforts to enforce these offences. As a party to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, Australia is a member of the OECD working group on bribery. A number of recommendations were made by that group. In particular, the Australian Federal Police has taken significant steps to improve enforcement of foreign bribery by the launch of the AFP-hosted multi-agency Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre to tackle serious and complex corruption, including foreign bribery, by bringing together experts from a range of agencies to ensure that foreign bribery allegations are fully investigated, and also the creation of a foreign bribery panel of experts. The government will continue to explore options to strengthen our laws and means of enforcing them but— (Time expired)