Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I actually think sniffer dogs are a very important part of our anticorruption framework in this country. I will expand later in this speech about how we have a multitiered, multipronged approach to anticorruption. Sniffer dogs are some of the most important law enforcement officers we have in this country, and I strongly want to put on the record my defence for sniffer dogs, despite the Greens wanting to abolish their positions and lose sniffer dogs jobs all around the country.

The other point I want to make here is that the Greens come into this place and want to make all these innuendos and suggestions about other people and other political parties, yet they do not hold a mirror to their own actions on these matters. It has been mentioned in this debate previously but it is worth repeating—and I think the Australian people would be interested to know—that the largest donation in Australian political history went to the Greens political party. Mr Graeme Wood gave a very large donation to the Greens political party a few years ago. I do not want to make any suggestion that that influenced the Greens but, given that they have raised innuendoes about our political party, I think it is important to put on the record here in this chamber that at the same time, or a very similar time, that donation was made to the Greens political party, they were in this chamber moving motions with the authority of their leader at the time, former Senator Bob Brown, in support of policies which benefited Mr Graeme Wood.

I have no evidence that there was any form of corrupt behaviour, but at least I am upfront with that. The Greens come in here and want to make allegations and slurs against other senators and other political parties without any evidence and then say, 'All these political parties are terrible and corrupt.' That is a hypocritical approach by the Greens, because it is the kind of behaviour they have engaged in themselves, but of course do not want to talk about that at the time that they raise innuendoes about others. This whole debate on this bill is based on innuendo. It is based on no evidence whatsoever. There has been no evidence provided to the chamber.

This bill has been presented after a long MPI debate we had late last year, and in that MPI debate there was no evidence presented that there is any kind of corruption occurring on a large scale or in a systematic way at the federal government level. Indeed, the actual evidence that does exist shows that we have a very enviable record on corruption in Australia. Transparency International has done an international comparison on corruption in different countries, and Australia ranks nine out of 177 countries on that scale. It is a record that we should be proud of. That does not mean that we are perfect and we cannot do more to ensure that corruption does not occur, but we are by no means a country that is behind the race on this issue.

Another report that confirms this statistic is a World Economic Forum Global competitiveness index report that was done recently. They surveyed businesses across the world in different countries and asked them what the biggest issues facing them were in those countries and what the barriers were for them doing business. This report covers a range of issues, not just corruption. It is worth noting that in Australia Australian businesses rate corruption as the equal last issue facing them in their business and doing business in Australia. Of course, that is not the case in some other countries, unfortunately. But in our country corruption is not a major issue facing business—and, again, that is something we should be proud of.

We are ranked nine out of 177. There are other countries that are slightly ahead of us. We are in a group of countries that are lucky enough not to have the scourge of corruption that infiltrate the wider society. Other countries, like us, also do not have anticorruption bodies like the Greens want to establish. Similar countries to us, like the United States and Canada, have not established anticorruption bodies, and they too rank very highly on these corruption indices. So there is simply no correlation between having a lack of corruption in a country—an economy and a business sector free of corrupt activities—and having a federal anticorruption body. One does not necessarily lead to the other. That is another indication that there has been no evidence provided here.

Before we establish new bureaucracies or new government agencies to deal with a matter it should be incumbent on any of us, whether a political party or individual senators, proposing such a bureaucracy to bring forth evidence as to why they want to establish that body. That evidence has not been established at all. There is simply nothing here from the Greens political party that shows there are corrupt activities at the federal government level. I do not know if this bill has been costed. It probably has not, given the Greens. I think Ken Henry once said that there is not a supercomputer big enough to be able to cost the Greens' policies. He is probably right. We should all make sure we produce evidence before we want to spend more public money and divert more attention in the Commonwealth government bureaucracy, and the Greens completely fail to do that time and time again. It is also the case that when the Greens bring this matter forward they do not actually—