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

Thanks, Senator Pocock. I can't add a lot more to what I've said already to explain the government's reasoning here. I accept that there is an issue around public confidence in government. That's not unique to Australia, unfortunately. But that's one of the reasons why it took the Albanese government to actually create a national anticorruption commission in Australia. We called for it for years when the coalition were in power. They refused to do so. We now have one, and that's a good thing. The commission have the discretion to hold public hearings where they're satisfied that it's in the public interest and exceptional circumstances justify doing so. This body has only been in operation for a relatively short time. I dare say that there will come a point where the commission decides that those factors are satisfied and that it should have a public hearing. I think that just because it hasn't had one yet isn't necessarily an indicator that it won't in the future, so the discretion exists for the commission to hold public hearings if it satisfies those criteria.