Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens support investigations and policies to strengthen the transparency and integrity of Australian democracy. I am proud of our track record on this issue. Former senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne introduced the first bills for a national integrity commission into this Senate eight years ago. However, we do not support using political donations to beat the nationalist drum in order to distract from domestic sources of corruption. We would support an investigation into the influence of political donations from Australia and overseas and the influence of powerful lobbyists. We would certainly welcome an investigation into how ex-members of parliament, who slide easily into well-paying private sector jobs, might be compromising the integrity of our democracy. But this motion does none of that. It is pure dog whistling to avoid tackling these very serious issues.