Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Scarr. Of course, the privilege against self-incrimination is an important principle in our justice system, and the bill does contain strong safeguards around the use of information that the commission obtains at hearings and in response to notices to produce. The bill does prohibit evidence obtained through the commission's coercive powers from being admitted in confiscation proceedings where those proceedings are already on foot or are imminent when the commission holds a hearing. We think that this strikes an appropriate balance to ensure that allegedly corrupt public officials can't retain the proceeds of their corruption, while ensuring the commission's powers cannot be used to advance proceedings that are imminent or already on foot. That point I'm making particularly relates to self-incrimination as it relates to confiscation proceedings.

More generally, our position is that corrupt conduct poses a significant risk to the community and corrodes public trust in public institutions. Corruption investigations are inherently concerned with how and why public officials have made allegedly corrupt decisions, and therefore require that anticorruption commissions have powers to require persons to explain their conduct. For this reason, the bill abrogates the traditional privilege against self-incrimination. This approach is consistent with that of all state and territory anticorruption commissions, and it's appropriate as it will ensure the commission can conduct corruption investigations in a timely fashion and hear evidence on matters that would ordinarily be protected, to ensure that the commissioner is fully informed.

Again, I know this relates to an amendment the opposition intends to move, which we will be opposing because we think that if the amendment were to pass it would significantly limit the commission's investigative powers.