Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, upon notice, on 29 August 2011:

(1)   How many Code of Conduct investigations have there been within the Minister's portfolio for the financial year years (a) 2010-11; and (b) 2011 to date;

(2)   How many investigations established; (a) a breach; or (b) no breach, of the Code of Conduct;

(3)   In each case, what provisions of the Code of Conduct were thought to have been breached;

(4)   What penalties were applied where the Code of Conduct was broken;

(5)   How many investigations are ongoing.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) (a) A total of 193 Code of Conduct investigations were completed in the financial year 2010-11.

(b) There have been 45 completed Code of Conduct investigations from 1 July up to and including 29 August 2011.

(2) (a) 55 completed investigations established that a breach of the Code of Conduct occurred.

(b) 183 completed investigations established that no breach occurred.

(3) The following table provides a breakdown of the main provision of the Code of Conduct breached in respect to the 55 completed investigations which established a breach of the Code of Conduct:

Note: In some cases more than one provision of the Code of Conduct may be found to have been breached. However, it is not possible to easily extract this information from the department's recording system.

(4) The following table provides a breakdown of the penalties applied to the 55 completed investigations which established a breach of the Code of Conduct:

Note: The total number of sanctions exceeds the number of completed investigations by four, because in four cases two penalties were applied while in every other case one penalty was applied.

(5) There were 46 ongoing Code of Conduct investigations within the Minister's portfolio as at 29 August 2011.