Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to what we thought was going to be an explanation from Minister Cormann. In fact he just chucked a few bits of paper on the table and left the chamber. I have read those few bits of paper, and they amount to 'Nah, they didn't breach anything. Go back to sleep, everybody.'

We have had many examples, over the years, of ministers exiting this place lining up the next job—sometimes even before they have left—frequently in an industry that they had just purported to regulate, and going to work for that very industry.This has been going on for a very long time. There are a litany of examples that I'm going to delight in going through, as I have done before in this chamber. Sadly, the list has just gotten longer since the last time we checked. There is a revolving door between ex-politicians and industry lobby groups. So to have this bit of paper that says, 'No, it doesn't breach the standards,' simply shows how bloody useless the standards are. We need some actual standards with actual teeth that actually clean up this place.

While you're at it, what about that ICAC that we have been waiting for for 10 years since the Greens first proposed it, including one that would apply to politicians—to MPs in this chamber and the other chamber? The government reluctantly announced in November last year that they would concede and establish an ICAC. Where is it? They made out that it was going to be coming really quickly, yet we haven't seen hide nor hair of it. Now we have the Prime Minister brushing off these two very serious breaches of the ministerial code.

It beggars belief that you can go and work for an industry that you were just regulating and somehow not draw upon the knowledge that you learned as a minister. I've read the document. I don't buy the explanations. I don't think it's possible to somehow have what are called 'Chinese walls' in our own head. I don't think the employers of former Minister Pyne and former Minister Bishop believe that either. They know why they have hired those people. We all do. The fact that the Prime Minister has brushed this off to a senior public servant to just prove how useless the standards are doesn't assure anyone that this government is acting with any integrity.

Sadly, we have seen that it's not just the government and the former ministers from that side of the chamber that routinely exit this place and go to work for industries that they used to regulate. There are a litany of examples on both sides of the chamber. I'll go through those in a minute. They serve to illustrate why we need a prime ministerial code of conduct that actually sets some high standards rather than the pathetic standards that not even these examples apparently breach—but we need them to have teeth. What's the point of having standards if they're (a) weak and (b) not even enforced? It makes a mockery of the standards and it makes a mockery of the Prime Minister, but I guess we're getting used to that.

I think the Australian people deserve to have confidence that ministers and former ministers are not using the knowledge that they've gained in their roles to further their own private profits or feather their own nest in future employment. I don't think that's too big an ask. Frankly, that is a very basic expectation. It is astounding that it is repeatedly not met and that we are seeing example after example of former high-flyers going to work for those industries on, no doubt, very large salaries and retainers. We just debated a Newstart bill. This mob don't want to increase Newstart for people who have nothing to live on, but they're very happy to continue to turn a blind eye when some of their own go off to fancy, cushy, well-paid jobs that breach the ministerial code of conduct, or standards as they're known.

We will be supporting the move for an inquiry into former ministers Pyne and Bishop, but it's not enough just to look at these two examples. This is a deeply unsatisfactory situation that has been going on for far too long, and if we are going to start looking at it then let's do the job properly. Let's take a full look at the level of non-enforcement of these standards through all the years since they have existed, as they apply to both sides of the chamber, and let's look at how we can fix that problem. Let's look at how we can make those standards enforceable. Let's give them some teeth. Do we need an independent enforcer to apply those standards? Clearly the Prime Minister doesn't care much about enforcing his own standards. Do we need an independent body to do that job and do it properly? We'll be supporting this inquiry, but we want to see it extended so that it actually looks at the root of the problem and at some real solutions to the problem.

Of course, the best solution for fixing up a corrupt system is to have an anticorruption body. Again, we've been pushing for that. It was in 2009 when we first moved a motion for that, and we've had many private members' bills for it ever since. We did some great work with former member Cathy McGowan that I believe helped to pressure the government to finally accept that an ICAC was needed. But where is this ICAC? We have heard nothing of it since February. It has totally gone off the boil. The pressure is now back on the government. They need to clean up their own patch. The Australian people have the right to expect that corruption is not rife in this building and that the revolving door between lobbyists and ex-MPs or their senior staff is firmly closed. So we will continue to push for an ICAC.

The other thing that we will be seeking to inquire into, hopefully, if this inquiry does, in fact, get the support from this chamber, is examples of not only former ministers flouting the very weak code of conduct but existing ministers breaching the code of conduct. There's been some coverage of Minister Taylor and Minister Frydenberg having what to me doesn't sound like a very above-board discussion about a piece of land in WA that would have been affected by a critical habitat declaration and that, inconveniently for Mr Taylor, is on a property that a family relation of his has a commercial interest in. As reported, Minister Taylor asked, 'Well, is there any way we can get out of this grassland declaration?' Apparently Minister Frydenberg agreed to have it looked into by the department.

Well, sorry, you don't get to rewrite the rules to make yourself more money just because you're in the cabinet. It is just laughable that they think they can get away with this stuff. So we want to make sure that the Senate inquiry that is to look into former ministers Pyne and Bishop also looks at current ministers undertaking what seems to me to be very dodgy conduct that is, I believe, in firm breach of the ministerial standards, which say that you're not meant to use your ministerial position for private and personal gain. I look forward to getting some more evidence on the table. In fact, we're awaiting an explanation addressing that from Minister Cormann tomorrow. Hopefully we will get an actual explanation, unlike the display that we saw earlier. Clearly, there are many examples to be investigated in this frame.

I want to list a few of the others. We saw former resources minister Mr Macfarlane leave the parliament and then, within the 18-month so-called cooling-off period—in fact, it was about a year later—go to head up the Queensland Resources Council. Nothing was done about that. We moved a motion in this place which, thankfully, got support, that called on existing ministers to at least boycott meetings with former Minister Macfarlane so that they could uphold the ministerial standard, even if former Minister Macfarlane himself was no longer complying with that standard. That time has now elapsed, but that was the most recent example of someone who purported to regulate the mining industry and then went off to work for them. Is it any wonder we have never seen a coalmine or a coal seam gas proposal rejected under federal environment laws yet? You would only need to look at the donations they make to both sides of politics to answer that question as well.

Former Minister Robb took a consulting role with a Chinese land developer which had an interest in the Darwin port, even though he had been previously working on trade matters as the former trade minister. Former Labor resources minister Martin Ferguson went to become the chair of APIA, the petroleum industry representative body that wants to frack the guts out of this country, poison everybody's land and water, and drive farmers off their productive lands. The former Liberal defence minister Peter Reith joined a defence contractor, and former Labor ministers Emerson and Combet became consultants to AGL and Santos. Former Minister Conroy, who recently left this place, now works for a gambling lobbyist group, even though he was at one time communications minister. The list goes on.

The irony of today's report by public servant Martin Parkinson is that he acknowledges that there is no way of enforcing the ministerial standards once a minister has left parliament. So not only does his advice show how weak the standards are but it even acknowledges, in the final paragraph, there's nothing that the Prime Minister can do about it anyway. Well, there is. He can rewrite the code, give it some teeth, give it to an independent body to enforce and set up an ICAC. We have been waiting for 10 years. The Commonwealth is the only jurisdiction that doesn't have an anticorruption body and, clearly, we desperately need one.

The Greens will continue to advocate these matters, and it's on the Prime Minister whether or not he wants to clean up his own patch. He doesn't have much else of an agenda, except attacking vegans and giving tax cuts to the rich. That will only last five minutes. Move onto the next decent thing. How about you lift Newstart and introduce an ICAC with real teeth? I won't hold my breath, but we live in hope. We have three years more of this government and we don't know what of their agenda they will try and wreak upon us, but let's hope that an ICAC is actually on it. We will move, and I hope we will have company, to give it real teeth, to make sure it can regulate the conduct of members of parliament and actually start meeting the standards that the Australian people have of us. We're very well paid. We have an important role to perform to represent the people. We are not just here to get our next job, working for an industry group. That list of examples is really quite cringeworthy. How about you act with some integrity, enforce these standards, stop turning a blind eye when your mates go off to work for your other mates that just made a massive donation to your campaign and introduce an ICAC?