Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The government thanks senators who have made contributions to this debate on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Foreign Bribery) Bill 2023. The purpose of the bill is to strengthen the legal framework for prosecuting foreign bribery and to give effect to Australia's international obligations under the OECD antibribery convention. The bribery of foreign officials by Australians is a serious criminal offence and can have far-reaching consequences for Australia's global reputation as a corruption-free trading partner.

The bill amends the current foreign bribery offence to replace the requirement that the advantage sought be not legitimately due with the broader concept of improperly influencing a foreign public official to capture bribes concealed as legitimate, ensuring that the offence keeps pace with the evolution of foreign bribery conduct. The amended offence will capture bribery conducted for a personal advantage, not just a business advantage. It removes the requirement that the foreign public official be influenced in the exercise of their official duties. It also makes clear that the prosecution does not have to prove that an accused had a specific advantage in mind and that the advantage can be obtained for someone else. The bill also introduces a new offence for companies that fail to prevent foreign bribery by an associate, unless the company can show that it had adequate procedures in place to prevent foreign bribery.

In her contribution to the debate Senator Cash spoke at length about the coalition's record on tackling foreign bribery and asserted that the coalition had been pursuing the measures contained in the bill for years. So, let's look at the former government's record. As Senator Cash rightly says, the amendments in this bill are substantially the same as amendments that were first introduced by the previous government in 2017 and reintroduced in 2019. Both bills were announced in strongly worded media releases. But, much like Senator Cash's contribution to this debate, the tough talk was all the former government had to offer when it came to tackling foreign bribery. When it came to action, Senator Cash and her colleagues, including the Leader of the Opposition, came up short: they did nothing. Having introduced a bill to strengthen foreign bribery offences in 2017, the former government allowed the bill to lapse. They never even brought it on for debate. Then, having reintroduced more or less the same bill in 2019, the former government again allowed the bill to lapse and, again, they never even brought it on for debate.

Senator Cash's contribution to this debate, trumpeting the coalition nonrecord, is all the more brazen given that she was Attorney-General between March 2021 and May 2022. In other words, Senator Cash was the minister responsible for the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Corporate Crime) Bill 2019, a bill that contained the measures that we have now been debating for over a year. Yet it was never brought on for debate. Just by contributing to this debate on the Albanese government's bill to strengthen foreign bribery offences Senator Cash has done more to tackle the scourge of foreign bribery than she ever did as Attorney-General.

In conclusion, this bill enhances Australia's response to foreign bribery and supports our obligations under the OECD antibribery convention. It is worth noting that this bill is one of the key integrity reforms cited by Mr Dennis Richardson in his recent review of integrity concerns and governance arrangements for the management of regional processing administration by the Department of Home Affairs. One of the other key integrity reforms cited by Mr Richardson is his review into the National Anti-Corruption Commission. For years, the former government failed to establish a national anticorruption commission, despite having bipartisan support.