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

Sometimes patience pays off in politics. It's been three years since my private member's bill for a strong, independent anticorruption watchdog with the ability to hold public hearings passed this chamber. It's been 14 years since the Greens first moved for there to be a federal corruption body. So here we are—this week we will finally see the passage of legislation to set up a federal corruption watchdog and, boy, it has been a long time coming. The Commonwealth has been the only jurisdiction that has not had such a body. All of the states and territories now have their version of a corruption watchdog, and it's not like the Commonwealth has been free of corruption, so this is a very happy and long-awaited day.

There are few things the Australian community is more unified on than the need for a strong, independent, transparent and effective corruption watchdog. Public confidence in the integrity of Australian politicians has plummeted in recent years. It's no mystery why. Scandal after scandal, with no consequence; watching donor mates feather their nests while so many ordinary Australians struggle to make ends meet; and former government ministers almost immediately popping up to spruik mining companies or banks or gambling interests after they've left parliament.

When Transparency International gave Australia its lowest score ever on its Corruption Perception Index last year it was clear that lack of progress on an integrity commissioner was a key factor in that terrible ranking. At the election, people voted clearly and en masse for more transparency, for more integrity and for better representation. People want an independent and powerful watchdog that can root out corruption that runs so rife in this place and continues to undermine our democracy, and they want that work to be done with transparency and without politicisation. Australians need to have confidence that there will be consequences when corrupt conduct is identified and there won't be a protection racket for politicians.

As my colleague Senator Shoebridge has outlined, the Greens have been pushing to get the federal corruption watchdog for 14 years now. As I mentioned, my bill passed this chamber more than three years ago. For 10 years we were in the wilderness advocating for this idea. It was described, if my memory serves me correctly, as a niche issue by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. It was laughed at by both of the big parties. Then, 10 years after we first suggested it, it was first Labor that finally agreed that this was something that needed to happen, and then it took another year for the Liberal and National parties to do a 180 and say, 'Alright, we agree that we need a federal corruption watchdog.' We're happy when people get there in the end; it's just a shame it took so long.

However, we then saw three years of obfuscation and inaction from the then Morrison government. We saw three rounds of public consultation on a draft consultation paper that miraculously didn't change from consultation to consultation. It was the absolute definition of tokenistic consultation, because they weren't listening to what people were saying when they were consulted on the bill. That was a somewhat amusing walk through history that was desperately frustrating to all involved at the time.

I want to pay enormous gratitude and tribute to former Greens senators Bob Brown and Lee Rhiannon, who drove this issue before I took over the portfolio in 2015. Of course I also want to acknowledge former Independent MP Cathy McGowan, who also had an excellent draft bill, and now Helen Haines. They have collectively got us to where we are today.

The previous government fought tooth and nail against an effective corruption watchdog. I wonder if that's because they knew half their cabinet would have been implicated by it. I've done multiple speeches in this chamber—and I ran out of time every time—in which I would list all of the scandals, all of the integrity fracas, all of the embarrassment that so typified the previous government. It's no wonder that the government at the time deprioritised this. It was delayed, and then it was finally printed and entered into in a form that made it the clear that the government continued to not listen to the expert contributions and what anyone with an interest in this had been saying for years.

What those experts had been crystal clear on were the key features of a strong, independent anticorruption commission. They are: a broad definition of corrupt conduct; a broad scope that captures parliamentarians and their staff, statutory office holders and employees of government entities and contractors; strong investigative powers; the ability to act on referrals, to act on public complaints, including anonymous tipoffs, and to act on the commission's own initiative; reasonable thresholds for commencing an investigation; the power to hold public hearings; the power to make findings of fact and findings of corrupt conduct; the power to report publicly; oversight by an inspector and a cross-parliamentary committee; and retrospective application. They were the key features the experts said a corruption watchdog needed to have in order to be an effective watchdog and not one that was toothless or asleep in the kennel.

In opposition, the Labor government acknowledged those features, so we were hopeful when the Albanese government made integrity a key election commitment. There is no doubt that this bill is a huge leap forward, with many of those necessary features. It builds on the good work done by Greens and Independents over many years. But we remain incredulous and deeply disappointed that Labor has walked back its previous commitment to public hearings, making them the exception rather than the rule. When it comes to integrity, the experience in all other jurisdictions has been that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Public hearings build public confidence in the outcomes. They act as a clear deterrent to those who think they can get away with corrupt conduct, and they provide a forum that can tease out new angles, new witnesses and new evidence that might not come to light without public attention.

The vast majority of work done by integrity commissions is done in evidence gathering and analysis, and with a clear view to balancing the public interest in transparency against the risk of disclosing compromising things to do with an investigation, and balancing that risk of undue representational damage. Public hearings happen only after a significant body of work hack has been done to satisfy the commission that there is a case to answer. Commissioners are well placed to make the assessment about what is in the public interest, but the presumption should be one of transparency.

We'll be moving amendments, as my colleague Senator Shoebridge has mentioned, to give the government another chance to get this right and to provide for public hearings. It's the worst kept secret in this place that a deal was done with the LNP on this matter in order to secure their support for this. There's some belief that somehow this will make it a longer lasting body. How can you create this otherwise fantastic body that's got so much work to do and then nobble it from having public hearings? It's just unfathomable. I urge the government to support the amendments that we will move to ensure that public hearings can be had without a fetter on the discretion of the commissioners to make that decision.

We also need to make sure that the resources that the NACC needs to do its job are determined by an independent body. Leaving funding decisions to government risks the body being starved by a government who would benefit from an Anti-Corruption Commission that's totally broke and has no teeth. An Anti-Corruption Commission that cannot do its job is, in many ways, worse than none at all.

The cross-party committee established under this bill is welcome, but it's not sufficiently independent of the executive. It can make budget recommendations, but funding decisions ultimately rest with government. Another key feature that is missing from this bill is clear protection for whistleblowers. My bill for a national integrity commission included a dedicated whistleblower protection commissioner, recognising that those who expose corruption and maladministration can face, and often do face, considerable personal risks. The Attorney-General has committed to acting on the Moss review and strengthening the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which we welcome, but it is a missed opportunity to not establish a whistleblower commissioner as part of NACC to ensure appropriate support, advice, representation and protection for people disclosing misconduct.

Finally, I want to talk about cleaning up politics. Of course, we need a federal anti-corruption watchdog and we will be supporting this bill, but a federal NACC is not enough. The NACC won't stop pork-barrelling or break the stranglehold of corporate influence on politics. It won't stop the revolving door between industry and political parties. It won't be enough on its own to give the community confidence that politicians are acting in the public interest, not their own interests. We need a comprehensive plan to clean up politics from the start, not just to deter corruption at the very end. We need to get the influence of big money out of politics.

Last week, I reintroduced my bill to ban donations from dirty industries and to cap all other political donations to $1,000 per year. We also need to lower the donation disclosure thresholds and make donations public in real time, so people can see who is seeking to influence decisions. We also need election spending caps, so elections aren't bought by those with the deepest pockets. We desperately need to lift parliamentary standards with a strong code of conduct for all MPs and senior staff, which we're making some progress on. We need to strengthen the lobbying code. We need to publish ministers' diaries. We need to make sure that freedom of information laws actually disclose information affordably and meaningfully. We need to stop the revolving doors and the golden escalators by extending the cooling-off period for former ministers taking on cushy roles in industries they used to allegedly regulate to five years, not the unenforced 12 to 18 months that it currently is. We desperately need a more diverse parliament that represents our community. We also need to remove barriers to public servants and dual citizens running for election. We need increased public engagement in parliamentary debate. We need strong support for protest and public advocacy.

Everyone benefits from honesty, transparency and accountability in politics—everyone except Aussie politicians. The community deserves a genuinely representative parliament with integrity, one that acts in the public interest, not just the interests of politicians, big corporations and the super rich.

I welcome this bill as a huge step towards that role. I look forward to working with the government on getting the rest of the way there. Whilst I began this speech saying that patience pays off, I'm running out of patience for reform on those other elements.