David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy President, I can indicate the Greens will be supporting amendments (1) to (4) as moved by Senator Pocock—I don't think amendments (5) and (6) have been moved yet, and I'll speak to them. One of the reasons is for the answer just given by the minister. We can think of many instances where there may be an attempt to mislead or provide false information to a public official which may have a deeply corrupting impact and where, in the opinion of the NACC, it may be appropriate to undertake an investigation to determine whether or not substantial amounts of public finances or some public policy has been corrupted and misapplied for that reason. Then the NACC can investigate it, expose it and come up with some corruption-fighting mechanisms and recommendations to prevent it happening again. We have faith in the commonsense of the commissioner—whoever will be chosen—to exercise this jurisdiction wisely. If it may be more appropriate in some instances for the Australian Federal Police or some external agency to undertake the investigation, then we have faith that the NACC would allow that to happen. But we see the opposition to this amendment coming from the government as troubling, because we know it happens and we know that we need systemic fixes and the best way of exposing and fixing it is through an empowered NACC.

The CHAIR: As there are no more contributions, Senator Pocock, I have the option to ask you to move amendments (5) and (6) on 1769, or we can leave that to later. The matter is entirely in your hands. This is in relation to budget.