Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the National Integrity Commission Bill 2013. This is the third straight time that the parliament has had the opportunity to consider this bill. I am the third leader of the Australian Greens to put this bill before the Australian parliament. I do so at a time when there is a tremendous public appetite for reform in the area of politicians' entitlements and an appetite for reform around the issue of corruption more generally.

This legislation would establish a National Integrity Commission, which is, effectively, a corruption and standards watchdog. The National Integrity Commission would have three arms. It would have a National Integrity Commissioner, who would be responsible for the investigation and prevention of misconduct and corruption in all Commonwealth departments and agencies, and amongst federal parliamentarians and their staff. As its second arm, it would have a watchdog that ensures that law enforcement has some independent oversight—so it would be responsible for the investigation and prevention of corruption in the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. Finally, and perhaps most germane to the issue of the day, it would also consist of an independent parliamentary adviser—that is, an adviser who would provide independent advice to ministers and parliamentarians on conduct, ethical matters and on the appropriate use of their parliamentary entitlements.

So, this legislation seeks to expose corruption—not just corrupt behaviour but also behaviour that is completely inconsistent with the standards demanded of us by the Australian community. It would not just police and expose that corruption but would play a very important preventative role as well. Through both the function of advising MPs around the use of their entitlements and other related issues, and the function of investigating cases where corrupt conduct is foreseeable, it would provide for much more proactive findings in addressing issues of corruption.

Turning to the independent parliamentary adviser, its role would in effect be that of an independent umpire that has the ability to make judgements around the appropriate use of parliamentary entitlements. This is a very important issue—it is an issue that obviously has come to public attention in recent weeks because of the level of abuse that exists around the issue of parliamentary entitlements. People have never held politicians in lower esteem than they do at the current time, and it is in part because of some people in this place seeking to use their entitlements—those that allow us to do our job—in a way that furthers their own personal self-interest. We have seen people claim family holidays as work expenses, and we have seen people travelling to weddings, rock concerts and so on and claim these as professional business expenses. We had the spectacle of the former Speaker of the House travelling by helicopter to do a trip that I do very regularly by car. One has to wonder about how someone can come to a view that that gross excess is acceptable. After having done this trip regularly myself, I believe she was also guilty of gross stupidity, because I suspect she would have travelled there faster had she driven there rather than taken the time to board a publicly funded helicopter.

The issue here is this: collectively, hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars are being spent in areas that are simply not consistent with what we would all accept is good practice, and at a time when the Treasurer tells us that the age of entitlement is over, that we are facing a budget emergency, and that we need to tighten our belts. What message does it send to the Australian community that we here, as opinion leaders, are prepared to engage in those gross excesses?

It is hypocrisy of the greatest order, and it is why we need to have an independent umpire make judgements on whether something is a legitimate business expense.

One of the areas, I think, that most of us will agree on is that there is a large area of grey when it comes to deciding what is a work expense and what should be classified as something that is a claimable or reimbursable expense—for example, as a portfolio holder in the area of health and as somebody who until recently was not a government minister, being asked to open a conference interstate. Was that something which I was entitled to claim as a professional business expense? There are areas of grey in that. What if the trip included a meeting with a candidate for office from my political party? What proportion of the trip should be claimable? All of those are areas that I think we need some advice on. That is why an independent umpire will take the discretion out of the hands of politicians, many of whom have shown they cannot be trusted, but would also put some clarity around some areas where there are legitimate debates about whether they should be classed as reimbursable expenses.

So here we have an opportunity to do something in a way that ensures that we actually get some movement on this issue. Instead, what we saw from the government was a classic political response, right out of the Yes Minister handbook. When you are in trouble, when there is a lot of public pressure on you as a government and you do not want to act, what do you do? Call for a review or an inquiry. That is what you do: you call for a review or an inquiry. So now we have the fifth review in a short space of time into parliamentary entitlements. We had the Belcher review, where we had recommendations, many of which still have not been acted upon; we had the Williams review; and we have had two Auditor-General reports. Of course, in an effort to shift this from the front pages of the newspapers, we ensure that there is yet another review into parliamentary entitlements.

I note that the panel composition does not include any member or former member from the crossbenches. There are a number of former Green MPs, former Democrat MPs and indeed other former crossbenchers who are no longer in this place and who would have been able to make a valuable contribution to this issue. Instead, we see both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party represented on this panel, and of course what we will see is weak recommendations—a ploy to ensure that we do not talk about it until the review hands down its findings, and hopefully by that time the issue will have left public consciousness. It is classic distraction tactics. I implore the Prime Minister, if he is going to go ahead with this review, that there be representation from the crossbenches, including from the Greens.

The office of independent parliamentary adviser would ensure that there would be a legally binding code of conduct for all MPs to sign up to. That would ensure that we are very clear about what is expected of us, and then we would ensure that that independent umpire would offer impartial and consistent advice to MPs on what they can and cannot claim.

It is my view that the issue of parliamentary entitlements goes to something much, much deeper. I think it goes to a complete disengagement and disillusionment with the current political discourse in this place. It reflects an anger at the level of political debate that we have here and at the very negative and adversarial partisan politics that have come to dominate the current parliament. I think we have a unique opportunity to go some way to address that, to ensure that the work that we do in this place is made easier, not harder, because the community understand that we are acting in their interests and not in our own interests. There are other things that we should do that are not, of course, the substance of this bill. I think the method for the election of the parliamentary Speaker, and indeed the President of the Senate, needs to be reviewed. We need to make some significant changes to our standing orders, including the way we engage in question time, and there are much broader issues around issues like political donation.

Let me come to the other arms of this bill, because this bill is not simply about workplace expenses, as important as that issue is, but about the issue of corruption more generally. We have in every state in Australia some version of an anticorruption commission, and yet here in the federal parliament we have nothing. There is a view that somehow we are immune to the sorts of corruption scandals that have engulfed state governments. Let me run through some of those, because corruption at a state level has been clearly identified and established, and individuals have been prosecuted.

Only recently, in South Australia we saw the chief executive of a state government agency charged with two counts of abusing public office. In Victoria, my home state, we have an education department financial manager who funnelled $2.5 million from schools into his pocket and the pockets of his relatives and other departmental officials. Some of the money was spent on overseas trips, on lavish parties and so on. Last month, IBAC, Victoria's version of the anticorruption commission, charged nine people, including two mid-level public servants, with allegedly funnelling $25 million from Victoria's public transport department into a range of family-linked businesses over seven years. How was that money spent? On real estate, luxury goods, jet skis and a grand piano. We now have IBAC turning its attention to revelations of a fraud worth up to $1 million involving the botched school computer system. There are now growing calls in Victoria for the powers of IBAC to be ramped up because of what we have seen exposed.

I am not going to go into the now infamous revelations that have occurred in New South Wales around ICAC—their anticorruption commission—but it is fair to say that the corrupt activity engaged in by former state Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, along with the exposure of illegal donations from property developers to a number of state Liberal MPs, is now legendary. The question is this: does anyone think that that behaviour is limited to state parliaments, that it does not cross state boundaries, that somehow the Australian parliament is immune? Yet here we are with the federal parliament being the only jurisdiction left unchecked against the very real threat of internal corruption and maladministration across the Public Service and, indeed, our law enforcement agencies.

It is absolutely clear that, given the widespread and established corruption charges that have been dealt with at a state level, we need, as a matter of urgency, a federal anticorruption watchdog. Counsel assisting the New South Wales ICAC, Geoffrey Watson QC, said:

I have seen things that show that federal politicians are not immune from temptation.

Information that was gathered by the New South Wales corruption body left him 'convinced of the need for a federal ICAC'.

Transparency International is the organisation charged with exposing corruption wherever it occurs. Transparency International director Neville Tiffen stated that it 'is almost unbelievable that the Commonwealth does not have an ICAC'. He went on to say:

Detractors say that there is no need for a federal ICAC because there is no evidence that corruption exists at the federal level. This is a nonsense.

They must believe behaviour changes as you board a plane for Canberra. Without a federal ICAC, we simply do not know the level of corruption that exists ...

If you do not look for it, you will not find it. If anything that the recent scandal around parliamentary entitlements shows us it is that there is behaviour that is unacceptable and that, in some cases, it will border on corruption if we do not have the structures in place to expose it. If you do not look, you will not find it.

Transparency International has also criticised Australian law for its low and ineffective penalties that punish corrupt behaviour. A report in 2009 highlights that Australia made little or no effort to enforce the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions. We have a very poor record when it comes to stamping out corruption in all of its guises. As recently as late last year, Transparency International released a report that said that Australia had dropped for the second consecutive year in its annual rankings in the corruption perceptions index, slipping outside of the top 10 nations. When it comes to comparing ourselves to some low-income countries, of course we do better, but is that where we want to set the benchmark? Of course we do not. We are now slipping outside of the top 10 nations when it comes to transparency. Let's be clear: corruption is a cancer. It impacts all levels of community life and it is a drag on business. We need to ensure that we stamp it out wherever it occurs and whatever guises it occurs in. So, we are slipping in global standing and we are slipping in the standards that the Australian people expect from us as parliamentarians, and the recent scandal surrounding parliamentary entitlements is symptomatic of something much broader. Who is to say that, if we were to look a little deeper, we would not find not just abuses of parliamentary entitlements but broad and wide-ranging corruption within all levels of our parliamentary agencies? That is why we so desperately need this bill to pass.

The review into entitlements is a small step forward—the concern, of course, being that it is simply to create the illusion of action when both sides of politics are committed to inaction—but it is nowhere near enough. We need much more. We need a federal anticorruption watchdog. We need an independent body that has the powers to hold all Commonwealth agencies, all departments and all federal parliamentarians and their staff to high standards of transparency. We can and should do better. We need to ensure that we have powers to provide oversight to our law enforcement agencies to prevent corruption within the AFP and within the Australian Crime Commission. We need an independent umpire to provide advice to ministers and parliamentarians on conduct and ethics and on the appropriate use of parliamentary entitlements. We can have these reforms right now. We do not have to wait until the fifth review into parliamentary entitlements is conducted. We could act now. If we had a government and an opposition who were prepared to support this bill, we could show that we are committed to ending corruption in all of its forms and to ensuring that parliamentary expenses are used as intended—that is, for parliamentary business.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this private members bill from the Greens, which I notice has been before this place on a couple of occasions previously and has been brought up again here. Judging by the fact that more than half of the speech by the leader of the Greens was around the current controversy about how members of parliament use the resources that are given to them to fulfil their jobs, clearly there is a fair bit of political expediency in them bring this forward again. However, I will not address that but will look more broadly at the concept of a federal ICAC and will articulate some of the structures that are in place federally that have meant that the federal government and its departments have not suffered some of the same issues that we have seen in some of the state jurisdictions that have been mentioned. I will also talk a little bit about the efficacy of some of the state ICAC bodies, some of the controversies around them and some of the principles that underpin effective management of risk. At the end of the day, that is what we are talking about here: we are talking about the risk of corruption, which involves individuals seeking to make personal gain or to change outcomes in contravention of expectations, guidelines or laws.

From the Commonwealth's perspective, this government—in fact, governments of both persuasions—have over many years put in place measures that demonstrate a zero tolerance approach to corruption. Certainly the coalition is committed to stamping out corruption in all its forms. Australia traditionally has been recognised as being in the top 10 nations in terms of transparency and lack of corruption. And whilst the leader of the Greens mentioned that Australia had slipped outside of the top 10, he did not mention the difference in terms of scores. I think generally we were getting about 81 points, and we got about 80, which is a very small change in the assessment—just a couple of places in a list of 175. It is not as though Australia is taking a nosedive and is on a path indicating that we have tremendous problems. We sit very comfortably with comparative nations, such as the UK and the US, with which we would expect to be on par in terms of the transparency and efficacy of our systems. Whilst it is important that we are cognisant of how other people see us and how we are rated, the way it was portrayed indicated a far worse situation than is actually the case.

The Australian government, at a federal level, has a multi-agency approach to combatting corruption, looking at ways to enable people to expose information. At the end of the day, even the state based ICACs can act only when information is provided to them. That will generally occur in one of two ways. Either somebody will provide the information, having seen something happening that is wrong and contacting a government official or the media or in some way providing that information, or the government will find the information itself through its own fraud control processes, which is why we have audit offices, from a whole-of-government perspective, and why individual departments have internal audits and investigatory powers to make sure we find out on a routine basis how taxpayers' money is spent and the basis of decisions made.

The element that also comes into the federal government's approach is one of risk mitigation. That is not only about planning, in terms of putting in the provisions for audit and the provisions for whistleblower schemes, but also, importantly, a lot of emphasis is placed on training staff to be aware of fraud and corruption, to the point where—certainly in my experience, having spent over 20 years in the Defence department—there is mandatory training, not only when you first join the organisation but on a recurrent basis, about what kind of conduct is fraudulent and what kind of conduct is ethical. That is the basis for shaping culture, not only the actions of individuals but also a culture whereby people will recognise fraud. With the mechanisms in place to allow them to report, we will see outcomes whereby they are held to account if fraudulent or corrupt behaviour has occurred.

So, we also have various oversight bodies. Again, the leader of the Greens said he was concerned about our law enforcement agencies. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity is responsible for preventing, detecting and investigating serious issues of corruption in federal law enforcement agencies, so we have actually already established bodies whose role it is to have oversight of our law enforcement agencies to check that their conduct is ethical, even those that are more secretive—groups like ASIO and ASIS. One of the roles I am privileged to hold here in the parliament is being a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. That committee has an oversight function for agencies such as ASIO and ASIS. But, importantly, we also interact and have regular briefings with IGIS, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The role of IGIS is to have unfettered access, even to all the things that are classified and secure, so that there is an independent watchdog that is watching over how those agencies operate, from their conduct of operations through to the way they conduct business. One of the roles of the committee is to further look at the agencies' expenditure and to query them on decisions they have made about how that works. So, even with our most secretive agencies, the federal government has systems in place whereby we have watchdogs at a very high policy level for the parliament, moving down to people who have very detailed access to the organisation.

More broadly, ANAO—the audit office—also conducts audits. The way they go about that and the fact that they interact with so many people at the working level—they look at decision trains and understand who was involved—means there is ample opportunity for people who have concerns about how decisions are made and why they were made to flag those concerns to people who are asking probing questions about the process so they can identify whether something has gone wrong with that.

In July last year the government also established the Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre, located in the Australian Federal Police headquarters. Alongside the Ombudsman, alongside ANAO doing their audit and alongside departments doing their internal audits, this centre brings together the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Crime Commission, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to assess, prioritise and respond to serious fraud and corruption measures.

Again, this government's approach is to say that we need to plan to educate people and to put in place reporting measures where people can whistle-blow or report. We need to put in place measures for investigating and making findings. Importantly, this group will maintain a coordinated specialist cell that will collect, analyse and disseminate data from Commonwealth agencies. By engaging with local intelligence initiatives and working with financial intelligence agencies, they can assess, prioritise and respond to those fraud and corruption matters. The ability to have that data means that they can mine that data to expose things that do not look right. That is the starting point to provide evidence of the fact that some corrupt behaviour or fraud has occurred.

The government is committed to tackling corruption in all forms. That is why we have instituted things like the royal commission into corruption within the union movement. We have seen many examples come to light through that. One of the reasons we have had that external body is that there have not been the internal controls over those movements, so we have seen corrupt behaviour come out. There have been some quite gross examples of corruption within that area. The reason is that there is not that internal control. That is the difference with the federal government—that there are the internal controls over what we do.

Defence, as I said, is my background, and I think it is instructive to look at how the Department of Defence handles this. Having sat through many Senate estimates hearings and having been on inquiries of the Committees on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade into Defence's conduct, I know that there have been criticisms in the past of Defence's internal investigatory service. But one of the things that Defence does do, like other departments, is that it has an evolving process of improving fraud control. Particularly as we start getting more whole-of-government processes and integration, we see those measures lifting in their efficacy. In terms of fraud control, Defence now consults with the Australian National Audit Office and, in consultation, they have strengthened their control framework for fraud to align with the Commonwealth's fraud control guidelines. At the beginning of 2013 Defence conducted a fairly robust internal and external assessment of the strategic, operational and tactical level fraud risks within the department. That then developed into their Defence Fraud Control Plan, which looked at the measures that Defence would take to prevent, detect and then respond to fraud.

If we step through that, I think the prevention side is important. The prevention side means that there is ethics and fraud awareness training that people need to do, as I said, on an initial basis and then on a recurrent basis so that they know what their own conduct should be. That is the personal responsibility element. But it also sets a benchmark that they can use to evaluate aberrant behaviour that they see around them. There is also the internal auditing. Defence has its own internal audit branch. Its role is to provide assurance to the secretary and the CDF that the financial and operational controls that have been put in place to manage Defence's major risks are operating in an efficient and effective manner. That audit branch provides an important function reporting up, but also working with managers at different levels to make sure that they have their own management and reporting systems in place. There is an audit work program that is developed with the various group heads and service chiefs to make sure that there is visibility and transparency across the risks over the organisation. In the last Defence annual report, you can see that a total of 32 audit reports were done internally within Defence in addition to six Australian National Audit Office reports. So we see that at a federal level we have these structures in place to give great transparency. Resulting from that there were some 333 fraud investigations registered in the last Defence annual report. A total of 358 investigations were completed—some of those had come over from previous years—and about 19 per cent of those completed investigations resulted in criminal, disciplinary or administrative action. That is just one example from the Department of Defence where we see those measures in place.

Importantly, from a whole-of-government perspective, one of the things that is apparent, as you can see from looking at the ICACs in state jurisdictions, is that they need a starting point. That starting point is often somebody who has witnessed behaviour that is not appropriate or ethical and has raised a flag. So from January last year all current and former public officials who wish to speak up about wrongdoing or maladministration in the Commonwealth public sector can do so under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. This legislation replaces all of the previous whistleblower legislation and provides a transparent process within agencies and government departments for investigating complaints. Under this act, a public official includes all current or former people who have worked for the Commonwealth. In the case of Defence, that would be the Australian Defence Force members, Australian Public Service employees, contracted service providers and statutory officers. Anything that they provide by way of disclosure alleging wrongdoing or maladministration will be called a public interest disclosure. The aim of this act is to promote integrity and accountability within the Commonwealth public sector. It encourages public officials to disclose wrongdoing and maladministration. Importantly, it provides protection from any adverse consequences of making a disclosure and it ensures that disclosures are properly managed and investigated by agencies.

Those conducts are conduct by an agency or by a public official that contravenes a law of the Commonwealth or of a state or territory, relates to corruption, is an abuse of public trust or office or is a deception relating to scientific research; or decisions that result in wastage of public money or property or unreasonably result in danger or increase the risk of danger to the health or safety of people. So it is quite a broad remit there. But coming back to that principle, alongside the audit programs that we have put in place, the Commonwealth has put in place a framework that encourages, enables and protects people who wish to highlight that unethical conduct has occurred. These protections are for people who make or intend to make a public interest disclosure. This protects their identity and provides immunity from criminal or civil liability, including disciplinary action, for making that disclosure.

Whilst the concern about corruption is valid, you can look at the state jurisdictions and see that there have been mixed results in terms of the efficacy of their measures. We saw the controversy in New South Wales just recently where the ICAC took measures that the High Court has struck down, saying they did not have jurisdiction. We saw people who have been investigated and whose careers have been put on hold, or ruined in some cases, yet there has been no definitive finding of guilt. So there have been mixed results in those jurisdictions. But the Commonwealth is saying, 'We're going to take the key element, which is bringing to light misconduct. We're going to prevent this misconduct where we can through training and culture. But we recognise human behaviour is what it is, so we'll put in place the audit processes, we'll put in place the processes whereby people can report without fear or favour, and then we will take action where required.'

The Leader of the Greens mentioned corruption overseas. In the media just recently we have seen that Australia has launched an investigation into foreign bribery allegations against an Australian construction company. In a range of fields the federal government takes action through existing, improving and evolving measures to make sure that we have transparency. In this way Australian citizens can have confidence that the decision-making and administrative processes of the federal government have suitable checks and balances to make sure that its behaviour and decision making is fair, equitable and transparent.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Integrity Commission Bill 2013. This bill seeks to establish a National Integrity Commission—better known, as the Greens would call it, as an ICAC—as an independent statutory agency consisting of a National Integrity Commissioner, a Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner and an Independent Parliamentary Advisor. It is an appealing concept to have a National Integrity Commissioner in one place. It would have appealed to me earlier in the course of my parliamentary career. But I came to the view long before now that putting all of your eggs into one basket is not necessarily the best outcome.

From what I have read and seen over time of writings from persons in the field of integrity, such as Charles Stanford and AJ Brown, if you are going to address systemic corruption within a federal body such as the Commonwealth, then a latticework of integrity agencies which are interconnected, working diligently and cooperatively is a far better model. The model that the Commonwealth has currently is not perfect. It always needs vigilance. It always needs to be at its best. But what the Greens are proposing is, I think, an outdated model, one that would weaken the latticework of protections that we currently have, and it would ensure that ultimately you would not have integrity. You would find that you would have a weakened model. What we currently do—and what they say would be the role of the commission—is oversee the functions for the investigation and prevention of misconduct and corruption within all Commonwealth departments and agencies, including the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission. What is proposed would also—

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will get your chance. The Greens always get excited about any criticism, but I will get to a little more criticism that they may want respond to in their submission. What is proposed would cut across work that is already being done by other agencies. Do you create a new agency that cuts across existing agencies' work? Do you have a duplication? Do you have unnecessary investigation being run in parallel while the Commonwealth Ombudsman does his job and while the various functions that oversee our Federal Police do their jobs? Do we have intercommission fights about who should take the lead in respect of a particular investigation? Of course, the short answer is that it may all be sorted out in the wash, but whilst that is occurring you have inefficiencies, costs and imposts. You also have confusion, and things may slip between the cracks.

While the current model that the Commonwealth has is not perfect, the efforts to improve this model are better than choosing to create an entirely new model. It would also be the role of the proposed commission to provide independent advice to ministers and parliamentarians on matters of appropriate conduct and parliamentary entitlements. The National Integrity Commission would have full investigative powers in relation to public officials and Commonwealth agencies. I think the jury is out on this matter more broadly, but is it appropriate to put parliamentary matters—that is, our pay and conditions—into the hands of a corruption watchdog body?

Or is it better to wait for the review to see how we can eliminate what the Greens also have recognised are the grey areas, ensure that the rules are clear and unambiguous, and thereby be able to have a proper person, body or whatever it might be to ensure that those issues are independently dealt with, rather than lumping it all into a National Integrity Commission? What the Greens would have is a National Integrity Commission which effectively has three functions in one. Again, you would have competition for resources within that agency itself. I do not think that is efficient or effective.

I think what the Greens have not cottoned on to is that there are several agencies which already exist with strong, effective investigative powers to promote integrity and accountability at the Commonwealth level. Labor did not support this bill when it was introduced on 20 September 2010 or when it was in introduced in the House on 28 of May 2012. Adequate capacity and resources across existing integrity frameworks are, I think, far more important than the existence of a single oversight body. We already have a range of integrity mechanisms including the Australian Federal Police, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the Australian National Audit Office, the Australian Public Service Commission, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and a few more that Senator Fawcett added into the mix as well. Plus, as Senator Fawcett was also alluding to, there has been a significant shift in the Public Service to ensure that they manage risk, identify risk and deal with issues of corruption within their own ranks. And I do not think that has been a small shift; I think it has been a seismic shift. It has also been a cultural shift within the Public Service more broadly. All of these agencies perform many of the functions, if not all of them, that would be performed by a stand-alone integrity and anticorruption commission. In fact I would go as far as suggest that having those interlinked would provide more security for the Commonwealth. However, these specialist agencies have expert knowledge that is likely to be lacking in a distant, more generic body. They are in all of those areas doing their job very close to the coalface rather than as a remote national body.

I remain unconvinced that a National Integrity Commission is necessary or desirable. In my view the range of arrangements we have in place at the Commonwealth level are adequate to combat misconduct and corruption. That does not mean they do not need more work. Looking at what the federal government is doing in respect of one of these areas, I think it is wrong for a range of reasons in transferring the FOI complaint-handling role from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. I think that is a weakening of that latticework I described. But the remedy is not to create a national body; the remedy is to ensure that you do have a strong and robust FOI-handling body and a strong OAIC to ensure that we do have the public release of information by the Commonwealth.

If you look at the work of the Greens—I will just turn to the Greens for a moment, which will excite them—you will see that their hypocrisy on the integrity and accountability matter is rife. I will share with the chamber just a couple of examples. On the matter of ethical standards, Senator Rhiannon, as I understand it, accused the then incoming foreign minister Bob Carr of lacking ethical standards, questioning his ability to make unbiased decisions in cabinet because of his previous work in the corporate world. This is not to pick on the former foreign minister, but some members of this chamber will recall that when Labor got into government in 2007 they adopted a revised standard of ministerial ethics, imposing the highest standard of ethical conduct that has ever been applied to federal ministers. Yet, as I understand it, the Greens are yet to adopt an ethical standards model, and I await the day when I see it. They do like to regularly trumpet their balance of power position in this house. If they do have that position then they should address it with appropriate ethical standards and adhere to them.

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

They want to talk about matters of political donations. Senator Rhiannon is on record as saying that business should be banned from making donations to political parties. But the Greens accepted $1.6 million from Graeme Wood, the founder of online travel company Wotif.com—the largest political donation in Australian history. If you are going to talk about national integrity you ought to make sure you have got your house in order. Senator Rhiannon was reported as apologising at the time after it emerged that she helped to ghostwrite an opinion article attacking her own party for accepting the huge donation. Be that as it may, the Greens are not a party that should be in the business of recommending reasonable reform when they are so clearly unfamiliar with it.

What needs to be realised is that agencies with strong investigative powers already promote accountability and integrity at the Commonwealth level.

The Australian Federal Police have all the necessary powers to investigate what may be considered as an offence under the Commonwealth law. The Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner has powers to investigate corruption within government agencies with law enforcement functions. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security provides independent assurance for the Prime Minister, senior ministers and parliament as to whether Australia's intelligence and security agencies act legally and with propriety by inspecting, inquiring into and reporting on their activities.

The Auditor-General, as an independent officer of the parliament, may review or examine any aspect of the operations of the Commonwealth public sector. The Auditor is empowered to examine cabinet decisions and cabinet documents, and this goes to the very heart of government. So the ANAO is not locked out of examining any part of the Commonwealth: if you want to go back to various reports of the ANAO, they have not held back in examining aspects of the Commonwealth probity and accountability.

The Ombudsman has the power to investigate administrative actions of Commonwealth agencies. He does not have to wait for a complaint. The concept that is being promoted is that we need a body that can investigate; that can, without a complaint, go in and look and look and look until it finds something as the Greens would have us believe. We already have one: the Commonwealth Ombudsman does not have to wait for a complaint; he can conduct investigations at his own initiative.

The Ombudsman can investigate everything from minor complaints about the way an administrative decision affected an individual—for example, an application for Centrelink assistance being rejected. They can range from the very small, although important to the individual, to large complaints—for example, the operation of the entire immigration detention system. Breaches of the APS Code of Conduct by a public servant can be investigated by the relevant agency head. The Public Service Commissioner has a similar role with respect to agency heads.

The failings of the New South Wales ICAC are enough to convince this chamber that a federal equivalent is not desirable. In his days as Chief Justice of the New South Wales Supreme Court, Justice Gleeson overturned corruption findings against one of the watchdog's first scalps. In 2005 a requirement was inserted into the act after a review of ICAC to direct its focus 'as far as practicable' on 'serious and systemic corruption'. What was found, I think—and I am interpolating here—was that we had a body that had to find work, and it looked and looked and looked, as the Greens would have a national body do, until it could find something to justify its existence. That is not to say it was a bad body; that is what its job was. However, it was required to keep looking and it found many issues that were otherwise small and easily addressed but instead elevated them to serious and being worthy of investigation. I suspect along the way it ruined careers that should not have been ruined.

The requirement was inserted into the act following an independent review by Sydney silk Mr Bruce McClintock to ensure that the commission used its broad investigative and coercive powers to net big fish rather than small fry. Mr McClintock implied that much time had been wasted prosecuting cases that in no way met the test. In those cases there was a distinct lack of understanding of the commission's powers as demonstrated in the Cunneen case.

One of the problems when you invent a national body is that you end up very much in the same place. In a New South Wales Parliamentary Research Service paper, ICAC v Cunneen: the power to investigate corrupt conduct, it is worth reading the conclusion:

As discussed in the Research Service’s Key Issues for the 56th Parliament, the ICAC’s lead role in the drama of NSW politics has resulted in questions being asked of the Commission itself, including questions about ICAC’s procedures, with the damage done to high profile reputations. Criticism has also accompanied the Cunneen case and its aftermath. An editorial in The Daily Telegraph from 21 April 2015 commented:

So the blame entirely lies with ICAC itself for trying on a flimsy case and as a result losing much of its previous impressive reputation and a great deal of power besides.

The decision in ICAC v Cunneen presents an opportunity for a thorough reconsideration of the appropriate scope and nature of the Commission’s powers. What do we want ICAC to do on behalf of the people of NSW? What is its purpose?

Until the Greens can bring forward something that answers those two questions, it is way too early to start supporting a national integrity commission. I think there is an opportunity to continue—I do not criticise the Greens for putting it forward, because it is a matter that we should always remain vigilant about, particularly about how this government treats the integrity agencies to ensure that they are properly resourced and funded; that they do not tear one down; and that they do not change its operation so they can continue to act effectively. If the day were to come where the integrity agencies that currently exist were weakened to such an extent that they could not do their job any longer, then I may be persuaded at that point that a national body is in fact needed.

The issue of establishing a single anticorruption body that will replace presumably—or work alongside—so many specialist agencies is one I have serious concerns about. Ultimately, it is the judgement of the people in this instance which will tell us whether or not we should establish a national body. Most national bodies have usually been established with an event—something that is so bad that it does require a huge national response. I do not think we have that. We have the Greens seeking to promote a body for its own reasons, but I do not think it solves the problem of ensuring that we have a strong anticorruption framework in place.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Greens National Integrity Commission Bill 2013, which was introduced by my colleague Senator Rhiannon. I acknowledge the hard and persistent work of Senator Rhiannon in fighting to establish transparency and accountability in our governance arrangements. This Greens bill is a significant part of that work.

Let us start by acknowledging the nature of one of the major problems we are confronting in this arena. Political donations have become an endemic part of our political culture. Year by year, government by government, we have seen the increasing importance and influence of those who would make donations to political parties. The terms 'big oil', 'big gas', 'big coal', 'big pharmaceutical', 'big retail', 'big agriculture',' media barons', 'banking tycoons' and 'property developers' have become part of our everyday lexicon not because the corporations and individuals involved in these industries have merely been going about the day-to-day running of private sector businesses; they have earned these names and this familiarity because of the manipulation by some of these players of the most sacred of democratic values, and that is the ability of those who are elected to a position of trust to govern and make decisions in the national interest and in the interests of the people who elect them. In my home state of South Australia, we have seen in recent times the pernicious influence of property developers bearing gifts in the form of political donations and the effects on the state planning process, which has resulted in decisions that have been manifestly not principled or based on good policy but, indeed, reflect the degree of generosity of those who have made those donations.

The fundamental and wonderful idea of a representative democracy is that elected representatives are ultimately accountable to the voters—to those people who put their trust and their faith in them by voting for them at an election—and that the decisions that those elected representatives make in the chambers of parliament reflect the will, the interests and the wellbeing of the electorate. Instead we have a system that is being increasingly skewed. Because of our system of political donations, third-party campaigns and media quid pro quos, we too often have a government that looks after the interests of the big end of town—those who actually have the influence, the power and the finances to assist them to stay in power—at the expense of everyday Australians who do not have those resources to influence decision making. Let us be absolutely clear: this problem is not limited to the current government. Political donations and excessive influence have been a blight on governments, both conservative and Labor, in the past. Therefore, although it would be easy to attribute the blame for the failings of previous governments and any failings of the current government to a simplistic view that they are due to a lack of moral backbone or some kind of sinister personalities; the truth is that the problem goes much deeper. We need a sophisticated and thoughtful solution to this, because it is systemic. It does in fact cost money and require resources to mount an election campaign to enable people to be elected to represent their constituencies in the parliament. Even the best and noblest of characters in our current political environment—and I believe that there are decent, good people in all political parties in this parliament—are caught up in a system that has perverse incentives to look for ways to raise the money and the resources that are needed to mount an election campaign. The ultimate dilemma is that political campaigns cost money and election-winning campaigns cost a lot of money.

Although the Greens have argued previously for a clear solution to this issue—that is, transparent, accountable public funding for election campaigns in order to reduce the influence and the necessity for special interests—this has consistently fallen on deaf ears in this parliament. Unless we can do away with the need to raise money from those who are wealthy and have influence, we are always going to have this issue about where the line is drawn. As an alternative or, indeed, an adjunct to that proposal, which is still very much the Greens' point of view, my colleague Senator Rhiannon and the Australian Greens are proposing this bill before the Senate today that would see the creation of a national integrity commission. Although the system of donations would continue in the absence of agreement that there be public funding for election campaigns, the national integrity commission—or what has been nicknamed the 'federal ICAC', independent commission against corruption—would provide the necessary scrutiny and oversight to ensure that our system of donations does not override the fundamental and important right of the Australian people to accountable government.

Importantly, we can look around and see the value of other independent commissions against corruption and what they have been able to achieve in the relatively short period of time in which they have been in existence in Australia. The NSW ICAC has been able to uncover property developers in cahoots with elected officials. No-one could argue that that was in the public interest. When you have nepotistic appointments to so-called independent bodies, you can be pretty sure that the person appointed will have riding instructions. There will be favours and there will be a loyalty involved after that appointment. We have seen donations from coal and gas companies that happened to coincide with the issuing of mining licences.

There is so much evidence of what occurs and then what is able to be revealed through the effective use of independent commissions against corruption. In New South Wales, for instance, this has led to an understandable disenchantment with the political class in that state. It was and is a necessary step towards the rehabilitation of our political culture, so that any representative parliamentarian can hold their head high and know that they are making principled, evidence-based, good, policy decisions in the national interest on behalf of the Australian electorate, the people who elect us.

The question remains: why are both the old parties against this bill that the Greens are proposing? Surely, the elimination of special interests and rent-seekers serves both the parliament and the Australian electorate. It would stop what is an endless race to the bottom, where the party who can sell out the most for private industry donations is the one with the most funds for campaigning. Nobody wins from this process. This bill would serve to level the playing field, so that even if the culture of donations did continue, all politicians could have the confidence that they can say no—and, in fact, would be well advised to say no to the more egregious requests from business and the deals that otherwise get done behind closed doors.

If all parties know that corruption, quid pro quos and the manipulation of impartial regulation will potentially come to light, will lead to penalties, will lead to media outrage and will lead to some of the consequences that we have seen recently in relation to the 'choppergate' scandal and the negative political consequences that accompany them, it would not be in the political interests of those persons to break the rules and the norms of ethical and good governance just because they have big donors asking them to do so.

This is not about blame; this is actually a proactive measure that the Australian Greens are introducing here today. It is not about blame; it is not about scapegoating; it is about looking forward. It is about fundamentally reforming our system to make it fair, to deal with the problem that we have identified—that is, the incentives in our current system to allow powerful interests with deep pockets to unduly influence the political decision-making that affects the Australian people in the way they go about living their lives. We want a system that is fair for the Australian people, that is fair for Australian politicians and, ultimately, in the interests of Australian business because Australian business also relies on the continued confidence of people in our political institutions in order to maintain the peaceful and prosperous conditions of their own success in a democracy like Australia.

When I was first elected to parliament, one of the things that struck me was the incredible trust voters placed in me when they voted for me, which resulted in me being in the Senate, when they put their mark on the ballot paper at the election. It is a trust where, if you unpack it, people would say that by choosing to vote for that particular person or that particular party there are certain expectations lying behind that, that that person or that party will rise above particular naked self-interest and try to make decisions, try to make changes, try to introduce and modify legislation in the greater interest—in the interest of at least those people who vote for them but, more broadly, in some ways in the national and long-term interest of Australian society. Increasingly, I think, there is a sense of scepticism among Australians and a sense of a loss of faith to some extent in the ethics of government and in the ethics of elected representatives. I find that very sad because, ultimately, that will erode respect for democracy.

The other thing that people perhaps are more concerned about now is understanding that the ability of sovereign governments to take long-term, broad views about what is indeed in the national interest has been undermined by the influence of very powerful interests. An example I would call on there is what happened when the former Rudd government attempted to introduce the mining tax in the interests of trying to recoup a fair share of Australia's mining resources for the benefit of all Australians and not so predominantly for the benefit of shareholders, who happen to be living in countries outside Australia. What we saw there was a concentrated and very, very powerful and incredibly well-resourced campaign from the mining interests to undermine the thrust of that legislation. There was a lot of commentary at the time about whether that heralded and highlighted the real difficulty for sovereign governments in nation-states to be able to take principled steps in the long-term national interest that would be in conflict with the short term but very powerful interests of corporations, which are often multinational corporations that have no allegiance and no loyalty to any particular nation-state. That question is still very much a live question.

It is a very sobering thought to think that perhaps if we do not do something to change the balance about powerful interests and the ability of elected representatives to govern in the genuine national interest, where will that leave us in the future, especially in this century when we are being beset by so many immediate and urgent challenges, which are almost existential? How are we going to survive, given many of the challenges and the human population challenge and the environmental challenges that we face?

I would like to come back to a particular example, a perhaps less widespread example, of where it was clear to me that a federal ICAC could change our political process for the better. That was an inquiry of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee into the work undertaken by the Australian Federal Police's Oil for Food Taskforce. I was the chair of the committee and it was a Greens' initiated inquiry. The inquiry, ultimately, looked at why it did not achieve the outcomes that a lot of people expected it might achieve in getting to the bottom of what happened in the oil-for-food scandal, which was atrocious in and of itself. But the investigations into that scandal failed to end up with anyone being held accountable and failed to properly untangle the structural problems at the root of it. The Senate inquiry should have been able to dissect exactly why the investigation into and actions against the Australian Wheat Board were so ineffectual in the end, but we were not able to do that.

The Australian Greens presented a minority report to that committee and in the oil-for-food scandal investigation report. We recommended that the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity launch a far-reaching inquiry into what we saw to be the structural failings in both the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in being able to prosecute wrongdoers in relation to the oil-for-food scandal. But unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the Australian Greens' recommendation in the minority report has not been taken up.

Ultimately on that committee we saw the major parties, the old parties, united to protect the Australian Federal Police and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from the scrutiny that was required to get to the bottom of it. One can only speculate—in fact there was evidence put to that inquiry, and it is available for people to have a look at—that there were higher powers and higher interests involved that were being protected. It is important to note that the period of the investigation into the Australian Wheat Board involved both the Howard government and subsequently the Rudd government. It was notable how little interest there was from the members of the committee who had allegiance to those governments in digging too deeply in a way that could potentially jeopardise the standing of either party or any of the personalities who might still hold political office to this day.

The political make-up of the references committee on that occasion ultimately did undermine the effectiveness of our inquiry. It has become clear that it is here that a federal ICAC could play a role. A standing body with large powers of information procurement and the compulsion of testimony would not only be able to overcome particular difficulties that we face, and that were faced in relation to the original investigation into the Australian Wheat Board scandal, but also have more resources and time to properly pursue the case. Senate committees, by their nature, are peopled with senators who have many other demands on their time and resources, not to mention other loyalty demands on their attention as well. So of course Senate committees, while often doing very good work, can sometimes be very limited in what they can achieve, particularly if they are investigating a controversial, contentious and highly risky political matter. A federal ICAC would mean that partisan politics would no longer get in the way of these sorts of investigations and of the Australian people getting the transparent and open government they deserve both in our parliament and in our federal departmental bodies.

I guess that leaves the question of why it is that the coalition and the Labor Party, the two old players, do not support this Greens proposal. There is lots of rhetoric around why it is too hard and why it will not work. But the evidence is mounting all the time that the current system we have is broken, that we need to fix it and that we need an effective, impartial and powerful body to be able to genuinely investigate issues that are arising in relation to the behaviour of political parties, the behaviour of federal politicians and the behaviour of federal departments and agencies. I guess in the end whenever we get this kind of resistance, this kind of obfuscation and this kind of apologist response to something that seems to be such a clearly good idea we have to wonder what it is that they have to hide.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was listening to Senator Wright, and I find it a remarkable contribution to say that somehow the issues surrounding the Australian Wheat Board and the oil-for-food scandal were not properly investigated. There were numerous inquiries. There was a royal commission into that particular scandal, and that royal commission actually recommended that 12 people should be subject to criminal proceedings. Those criminal charges did not end up being laid, but I am not exactly sure what Senator Wright is suggesting. It seems to me she is suggesting that somehow we should be double-guessing and questioning the judgement of the various directors of public prosecutions in our state and federal jurisdictions—because they are the ones who decide whether to proceed with criminal charges. I do not believe that it should be up to us as politicians or members of the executive government. I do not believe that Senator Wright actually would agree with this position—for us to direct DPPs to lay particular criminal charges. It is a ridiculous suggestion from Senator Wright that somehow the executive government should be held accountable for the DPP not proceeding with criminal charges. I do not know the specifics of the case, but I do have some trust and confidence in the various law enforcement agencies in our country and their record of integrity and independence. In our system it is up to their judgement on whether criminal proceedings should proceed, and obviously in this instance they did not decide that.

There was a lack of detailed argument from Senator Wright for the establishment of such a serious body here in Australia and a lack of any examples of corrupt behaviour—none in her speech. I listened to most of it. It was all about innuendo, potentially people doing this and that in dark rooms, but gave no actual example of corruption. They want to establish a whole new body in our Commonwealth jurisdiction, despite the fact there are already bodies that look at this. It indicates to me that this is just another stunt from the Greens. It is another stunt from the Greens to put on this piece of legislation. They know it is not going to get passed; it is another stunt for them to gain some kind of media attention. They are becoming the masters of stunts in this chamber. They are the 'Captain Risky' of this chamber. Those ads that are running at the moment are quite humorous. I cannot remember the insurance company they are promoting, and I probably should not say it in the chamber to promote them. They are the 'Captain Risky' of Australian politics right now. They are just doing stunts all the time for no particular purpose and no actual gain for our country or the people who live here. It is simply about getting exposure for themselves and their own political purposes. That is not how I think this chamber should be run, and I do not think that is how we should bring things into this chamber.

I also want to make the point that I do not think the Greens are having a conscience vote on this bill that they have brought forward. I do not think they are giving their members a conscience vote on this bill. That is another bill that the Greens will not be having a conscience vote on. They want to say that all other political parties should have conscience votes on things, but they do not apply that principle to themselves. The other day Senator Di Natale came into this place and argued that we should ban sniffer dogs, that we should get rid of sniffer dogs. According to the Greens, sniffer dogs are apparently a great threat to the personal liberty of people in this country. I do not think they are having a conscience vote on that position either. I do not think the Greens are having a conscience vote on sniffer dogs. I reckon there might be some Green senators who actually support sniffer dogs. I think there might be some more reasonable Green senators. Senator Ludlam might support sniffer dogs. I think Senator Whish-Wilson is quite reasonable. He would probably support sniffer dogs. But the Greens do not have a conscience vote on that position either. It is all Stalinist democratic socialism for the Greens all day every day.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I would ask you to draw Senator Canavan's remarks to the question that is before the chair and maybe put to him why he seems keen to talk about anything at all except the bill that is in front of us on corruption and parliamentary entitlements.

Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. That is a debating point.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I actually think sniffer dogs are a very important part of our anticorruption framework in this country. I will expand later in this speech about how we have a multitiered, multipronged approach to anticorruption. Sniffer dogs are some of the most important law enforcement officers we have in this country, and I strongly want to put on the record my defence for sniffer dogs, despite the Greens wanting to abolish their positions and lose sniffer dogs jobs all around the country.

The other point I want to make here is that the Greens come into this place and want to make all these innuendos and suggestions about other people and other political parties, yet they do not hold a mirror to their own actions on these matters. It has been mentioned in this debate previously but it is worth repeating—and I think the Australian people would be interested to know—that the largest donation in Australian political history went to the Greens political party. Mr Graeme Wood gave a very large donation to the Greens political party a few years ago. I do not want to make any suggestion that that influenced the Greens but, given that they have raised innuendoes about our political party, I think it is important to put on the record here in this chamber that at the same time, or a very similar time, that donation was made to the Greens political party, they were in this chamber moving motions with the authority of their leader at the time, former Senator Bob Brown, in support of policies which benefited Mr Graeme Wood.

I have no evidence that there was any form of corrupt behaviour, but at least I am upfront with that. The Greens come in here and want to make allegations and slurs against other senators and other political parties without any evidence and then say, 'All these political parties are terrible and corrupt.' That is a hypocritical approach by the Greens, because it is the kind of behaviour they have engaged in themselves, but of course do not want to talk about that at the time that they raise innuendoes about others. This whole debate on this bill is based on innuendo. It is based on no evidence whatsoever. There has been no evidence provided to the chamber.

This bill has been presented after a long MPI debate we had late last year, and in that MPI debate there was no evidence presented that there is any kind of corruption occurring on a large scale or in a systematic way at the federal government level. Indeed, the actual evidence that does exist shows that we have a very enviable record on corruption in Australia. Transparency International has done an international comparison on corruption in different countries, and Australia ranks nine out of 177 countries on that scale. It is a record that we should be proud of. That does not mean that we are perfect and we cannot do more to ensure that corruption does not occur, but we are by no means a country that is behind the race on this issue.

Another report that confirms this statistic is a World Economic Forum Global competitiveness index report that was done recently. They surveyed businesses across the world in different countries and asked them what the biggest issues facing them were in those countries and what the barriers were for them doing business. This report covers a range of issues, not just corruption. It is worth noting that in Australia Australian businesses rate corruption as the equal last issue facing them in their business and doing business in Australia. Of course, that is not the case in some other countries, unfortunately. But in our country corruption is not a major issue facing business—and, again, that is something we should be proud of.

We are ranked nine out of 177. There are other countries that are slightly ahead of us. We are in a group of countries that are lucky enough not to have the scourge of corruption that infiltrate the wider society. Other countries, like us, also do not have anticorruption bodies like the Greens want to establish. Similar countries to us, like the United States and Canada, have not established anticorruption bodies, and they too rank very highly on these corruption indices. So there is simply no correlation between having a lack of corruption in a country—an economy and a business sector free of corrupt activities—and having a federal anticorruption body. One does not necessarily lead to the other. That is another indication that there has been no evidence provided here.

Before we establish new bureaucracies or new government agencies to deal with a matter it should be incumbent on any of us, whether a political party or individual senators, proposing such a bureaucracy to bring forth evidence as to why they want to establish that body. That evidence has not been established at all. There is simply nothing here from the Greens political party that shows there are corrupt activities at the federal government level. I do not know if this bill has been costed. It probably has not, given the Greens. I think Ken Henry once said that there is not a supercomputer big enough to be able to cost the Greens' policies. He is probably right. We should all make sure we produce evidence before we want to spend more public money and divert more attention in the Commonwealth government bureaucracy, and the Greens completely fail to do that time and time again. It is also the case that when the Greens bring this matter forward they do not actually—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. Senator Canavan maybe unwittingly, but at least uncaringly, has misled the chamber. The proposal was costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office at $90 million, and I ask you to draw that to the attention of the hapless senator.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ludlam. That is a debating point, so I would give the call back to Senator Canavan.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ludlam for bringing that to my attention. I did say I was not sure if it was costed, so I do not believe I have misled the Senate at all. But I do appreciate his bringing that figure of $90 million to my attention. As I have said earlier, they have not produced any evidence of corruption, but they want to spend $90 million on a problem that does not exist. It shows and confirms the approach of the Greens towards broader economic issues and towards the public debate. They have no concern for the spending of public money and they are quite happy to make a proposal costing Australian taxpayers millions of dollars when they have brought no evidence in to suggest that it is an issue, and they know that it has no chance of passing here today. They do not try to argue anything—they do not go around to us all and say, 'Do you want to vote for this? It might be a good idea.' They do not do any of that. They do not work with other political parties and senators to try to convince them; all they do is come into this chamber and put forward stunts. It is not for this chamber. It is not for getting legislation through and effective policies implemented. For them it is all for exposure and political purposes, and it is all about the stunt. It is all about the stunt with the Greens.

Again, as I was going to say before I was interrupted, not only do the Greens present no evidence for this body to be implemented, they then go on and ignore the fact that we actually have a variety of agencies in place in Australia to deal with anticorruption. Indeed, we have one primary body whose task is to put a check on corruption in Australia—the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. It is charged specifically with investigating corruption allegations, and has been in existence for some years. Indeed, last year its investigations led to the arrest of an Australian Federal Police officer for allegations of corruption. While we rank highly on corruption relative to other countries there is no doubt that sometimes, unfortunately, it does occur and we should of course have appropriate law enforcement agencies looking at these issues and enforcing the law when the law is breached. The Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity is the primary body, but other bodies also assist in this task, including the Australian Crime Commission, the Australian Border Force and the Australian Federal Police themselves.

This government has sought to strengthen the resources available in this field and to these bodies. The Australian government has made an extra million dollars available to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to help its own activities. Personally, I think that is a much more responsible approach to this issue than picking up $90 million from the air. I am not exactly sure what this $90 million will be used for; it will be a massive bureaucracy, no doubt. But there is no clear issue with the way corruption is handled at a federal level, and it is good that the government is continuing to make sure it is well-resourced, because it is a very important area. The government has also announced Task Force Pharos, which is looking particularly at the issues of corruption in the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. There have been a number of issues raised there in the last few years and, again, it is right and proper that something specific has been established here to investigate.

With the time available to me I want to move to the broader issues of establishing an anticorruption body like the one the Greens want to establish. It is not just that this would create a bureaucracy and cost money, it is that the kind of body the Greens want to establish will, and does, at state government levels restrict individual liberties. I believe that at times it is appropriate for liberties to be restricted where there is appropriate public policy concern, but I note that generally the Greens are not on that side. Generally, when issues restricting individual liberties come forward in this chamber—and they have a number of times in the past year—the Greens oppose those changes. We have passed legislation in the past year that has restricted liberties to help try to protect our country against terrorist activities. I believe they have been appropriate changes to the law, and I note the Labor Party's support for those changes—they are serious issues.

We should seriously consider any time we seek to restrict individual liberty but, generally speaking—and certainly particularly speaking on these issues in the past year—the Greens have opposed those changes because they see it as a breach of human rights to restrict individual liberty. It is well within their right to hold those positions, but I note here that they do not then outline why and make a case for why liberties should be restricted here in this instance. Also, there is no case being made in human rights law or in philosophy about why it would be right and proper to restrict liberties in this case. These bodies have very specific powers at the state level. ICAC and, in my state, the Crime and Corruption Commission, have the power to force people to give evidence and that, traditionally, has been something that has been protected in common law and in other similar countries in constitutions.

We do not have what is colloquially known as 'taking the fifth' in this country, but in the United States they have a constitution in their Bill of Rights of protection against being forced to give evidence, particularly where you would incriminate yourself. But we do have a tradition in English common law that this is not permissible; that the powers that are given to bodies like ICAC and the CCC are akin to star chambers.

'Star chambers' is a colloquial term from the Middle Ages, when the kings of England would establish chambers to force people to reveal whether or not they had committed the great sin of being a Catholic. These chambers were originally established to force witnesses to divulge whether they were papists and believed in the Pope in Rome and not in the Church of England. Over time, English common law ruled that it was not right and proper to force individuals to provide evidence because people are put in a corner when forced to provide evidence to a court of law or to some chamber or in this case to a corruption body. A person either has to speak the truth and, if they do incriminate themselves, they obviously face the sanction of that particular court of law or they do not give evidence. If they do not give evidence, they are subject to perjury under these bodies. I do not think it is right and proper to force individuals in that case—or in all circumstances.

As I said earlier, sometimes it may be right and proper to restrict liberties. At a state government level they have decided to establish these bodies. They do restrict individual liberties. They do help to get to the root of corruption at certain times, but it is something that needs to be balanced by any responsible government before it is introduced. It needs to be considered at least and the Greens have not even considered these issues in their promotion of this bill. That is a great failing in my view of this particular proposal. We need to seriously consider whether it is right and proper at the federal government level to establish a commission that does restrict individual liberty against the potential benefits of rooting out corruption.

Evidence that corruption is a major issue has not been provided. Therefore, I do not think it is right and proper to go against the hundreds of years of tradition in our legal system that protects individuals against giving evidence that might incriminate a person. On this point, I would like to conclude with some issues in my state. The Crime and Corruption Commission in my state was established after the Fitzgerald inquiry, which exposed serious corruption in Queensland, but what is not commonly known is that the Fitzgerald inquiry did not recommend the establishment of what was then called the Crime and Misconduct Commission for this precise reason—that it would be restrictive of individual liberties and, in their view, was not a necessary response to the issues that the Fitzgerald inquiry uncovered.

There was then a Liberal and National government in Queensland. It did not agree with that recommendation and established the Crime and Misconduct Commission. The Queensland government debated and considered it and, given the serious corruption exposed, thought it was an appropriate response to those activities. I make the point that before we would implement something similar here in the federal sphere, we would want to have that evidence, that exposure of some serious and systematic corruption. That simply has not happened and the Greens have simply not brought that forward and therefore this bill should be opposed by this chamber.

Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Green's National Integrity Commission Bill 2013. The bill seeks to establish a National Integrity Commissioner who would seek to address corruption in relation to public officials and Commonwealth agencies. I note Senator Rhiannon has said that a lobbying code of conduct should apply to all members and senators, including minor parties. Labor will consider the Greens' proposal in this bill in detail to create a National Integrity Commissioner. However, the jury is still out as to whether this particular initiative is either necessary or desirable. I say that because I believe that there are, today, several agencies with strong investigative powers that seek to promote accountability and integrity at the Commonwealth level.

Labor has never objected in principle to a federal ICAC—if I could use that term—and our concern is that there is no clear case for the necessity of such a body. The last Labor government was serious about tackling corruption at the federal level and took proposals to the last election for a comprehensive suite of measures to deal with corruption. The agencies we have, as they currently exist, perform many of the functions that would be performed by a standalone integrity and anti-corruption commission. For example, where biased conduct may amount to an offence under Commonwealth law, powers such as those the Australian Federal Police have are available to prompt an investigation and, in doing so, to act independently. Under current provisions, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity can investigate any potential conduct that it deems to be corrupt in Australian government agencies and with law enforcement functions. I note from the annual report of the Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity that the agency is working effectively in cooperation with other agencies within its jurisdiction and other state and territory law enforcement agencies and the annual report looks at some of the measures of ACLEI's performance on criminal prosecution outcomes. It would appear that ACLEI has had some outstanding successes in recent years.

In 2012-13, 2013-14 and in the early months of 2014-15, Operation Heritage Marker resulted in 19 convictions for criminal offences with sentences ranging from 8½ years imprisonment, to suspended sentences and convictions resulting in good behaviour bonds. Operation Pentax led to a conviction for abuse of office in 2014-15. On 19 December 2014, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had another eight matters listed for hearing or sentence during this financial year and at the time of the annual report of 2013-14, current operations were confidently expected to result in further arrests, charges and prosecutions as the year progressed.

On the issue of strengthening integrity systems, I note from the annual report that, as part of the commitment to detecting corruption-enabled border crime, ACLEI worked with the ACBPS on Task Force Pharos, which Senator Canavan has referred to, which was using the ACCs National Criminal Intelligence Fusion Capability to identify indicators of corrupt conduct in the ACBPS. ACLEI contributed to Australian government threat assessments and policy development relating to fraud control, infiltration risk, personal security, the border environment and organised crime, managing conflicts of interest, professional reporting mechanisms (public interest disclosures) and the value and use of information gained using covert investigation methods. It has also developed seven model integrity policies and a new type of fraud and corruption control plan to capture and apply lessons learned from its anticorruption investigations and corruption prevention theory, in particular the connection between organisational integrity and performance.

This is an organisation that is currently charged with looking at this particular issue. I note that it is not without criticism in terms of its jurisdiction; however, it is an agency that does seem to be performing a useful function. In addition, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security provides independent assurances for the Prime Minister and other senior ministers regarding whether or not Australia's intelligence and security agencies act legally by way of inspection and inquiry into their activities. Furthermore, we have the Auditor-General, who is an independent officer of the parliament. He may review and/or examine any given realm concerning the operations of the federal public sector. The Auditor is empowered to examine cabinet decisions and related documents—something that goes right to the core of government.

It appears that there are existing safeguards in place to address possible corrupt activity. In addition, any possible breaches of the APS Code of Conduct by a public servant can be investigated by the relevant agency head. The Public Service Commissioner has very similar roles in respect of agency heads. So at this point in time, whilst not closing off the option—and it is quite possible there may be some model that would be acceptable to us—in terms of the model proposed by the Greens at this time we do not see any merit in going down that track.

There is another argument that could be advanced at this point in time against the proposal. The specialist agencies that I have referred to are closer to the bodies which they regulate and so it could well be argued that they have greater expert knowledge concerning those agencies than a single generic, stand-alone agency may have over the bodies which it is seeking to regulate. Of course, whenever one makes significant changes of this nature—taking away powers in different areas and consolidating them in other areas—there is always the potential for unintended consequences out of that, quite separate to the loss of the expert knowledge. It could well be that as a result of this we are more vulnerable to cuts in that particular area that may impact on the overall effectiveness. I think Senator Ludwig made the argument that it may not be wise to put all one's eggs in the same basket.

I would like to point out that the federal government operates very differently to state governments and therefore we ought to be seeking to look at a model that suits the needs at the federal level. There may well be sound motives behind the Greens' proposal to create a national integrity commissioner—and I certainly do not disagree with that—but for the reasons I have advanced I argue that it is unnecessary and undesirable. That is despite the fact that what gives rise to this bill is potentially the fact that politicians have not performed as well as we could have in the public sphere which has led to politicians of all political persuasions not being held in high regard by the general public. One of the unfortunate consequences of that—and I pointed to this in my first speech—is today young people do not believe that democracy is the best form of government. We saw a Lowy poll last year that came up with that very concerning finding.

I think collectively we all need to work harder to lift our standards. I accept that my own party has had some issues in the past that we have had to look at, but I am extremely proud of the record that the Labor Party has had not only in my home state of Queensland but at the federal level at addressing these issues of corruption. What causes the general public some concern is political donations. Questions arise in people's minds about that. At the federal level Labor has adopted a very responsible approach. We know that Labor voluntarily discloses all donations greater than $1,000, despite the fact that the current legislation requires disclosure only of amounts greater than $13,000.

I previously spoke on this concept of a national ICAC last year. It was a separate bill. On that occasion I did also point to the very proud history of Labor in Queensland in dealing with official corruption—and Senator Canavan has made reference to the Fitzgerald inquiry, which was a seminal event in the history of my state. Institutionalised corruption was addressed. To its credit, it was the National Party which, at that time in government, instituted the Fitzgerald inquiry. There was found to be quite a great deal of corruption. Rising out of that we had the Criminal Justice Commission and a process was set up. In contrast to the responsible approach that Labor has had in my home state of Queensland, under the previous Newman government, we saw unfortunately a reversion to type where we saw the parliamentary oversight committee of the Crime and Misconduct Commission, the subsequent body which evolved from the CJC, sacked overnight by the state's then Attorney-General. So that was a most unfortunate reversion to previous conduct in Queensland, but that issue has now been addressed with the Queensland election.

In closing, once again I state that perhaps the Greens' proposal is done with the right motives, and no-one would disagree with the fact that on the surface a national anticorruption body does have some superficial attraction, but I would be concerned about any unintended consequences which arise from that. The model which is before us at the moment is not one that I can support but I would not rule out support for such a similar organisation if it was set up differently. Perhaps what is necessary is a more wide-ranging inquiry into this issue to give the matter some detailed scrutiny. If we had some report in relation to that, it might be something we could have a look at down the track.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for engaging in the debate in the largely respectful way in which it has been conducted. I want to add my comments to those of others who have spoken. I think it was Senator Fawcett actually who pointed out that this is not the first time that this bill has been before this chamber. In fact, it is unfinished business, in my view, to our institutional architecture that will sit on the table in this place until some form of an entity such as that which we are discussing has been implemented.

I think the positions of the political parties are now reasonably clear. Liberal and Nationals senators have spoken out reasonably clearly. They do not want a national ICAC or some form of national integrity commissioner. They are just not interested in it, and we heard a range of arguments put around this morning as to why. Labor appears to be open to the idea as long as nobody actually proceeds to set one up, which is reasonably consistent, I guess, with the way that they have operated around these issues in the past.

I would like to point out there may be a difficulty for us in here, in this fishbowl, having this argument around political entitlements and our use of them as MPs and how that grades from appropriate use of entitlements—some of them substantial—through to inappropriate or grey area uses through to brazenly inappropriate uses of parliamentary entitlements all the way out the other side to what we would understand as corruption. The bill that is before us attempts to deal in a number of ways with all of those different tiers of activity.

I want to quote someone who I do not think I have quoted in this place before, Nicholas Greiner, the former Premier of New South Wales. I went back and looked at a little bit of the history of how the state anticorruption bodies were set up but, principally, the circumstances in which they arose. In general they arose in the midst of appalling corruption scandals within each of those states whether it was Queensland or New South Wales that I have been reading a little bit about this morning or in my own home state of Western Australia. In May 1988 when they were initiating the ICAC bill in the New South Wales parliament, Mr Greiner said:

Nothing is more destructive of democracy than a situation where people lack confidence in those administrators that stand in a position of public trust. If a liberal and democratic society is to flourish we need to ensure that the credibility of public institutions is restored and safeguarded and that community confidence in the integrity of public administration is preserved and justified.

They are quite strong words. I would not normally wander in here quoting coalition state premiers. But when you look at the context in which that bill was introduced, when you get a little way into his second reading speech, this was the backdrop against which that entity was set up. He said:

In recent years, in New South Wales we have seen:—

He goes on to list

a Minister of the Crown jailed for bribery; an inquiry into a second, and indeed a third, former Minister for alleged corruption; the former Chief Stipendiary Magistrate gaoled for perverting the course of justice; a former Commissioner of Police in the courts on a criminal charge; the former Deputy Commissioner of Police charged with bribery; a series of investigations and court cases involving judicial figures including a High Court Judge; and a disturbing number of dismissals, retirements and convictions of senior police officers for offences involving corrupt conduct.

What I found quite instructive and interesting in listening particularly to coalition contributions this morning was that Senator Fawcett quite carefully went through and listed all the different Commonwealth entities and checks and balances and accountability agencies that exist to keep a check on different parts of the Commonwealth machinery. He spoke a little bit about ASIO and ASIS; about the Federal Police, which I will get back to in a second; and about the law enforcement community more generally. He even talked about overseas anticorruption and about state and territory bodies—everybody except us. I was waiting for the punchline where he was going to use that to somehow justify the fact that no such body should therefore apply to this place but there was no punchline and he sat down. He did not actually come to the point that I thought he would have been trying to make and it was quite a well constructed speech—that everybody else has some form of anticorruption watchdog looking over their shoulder with a certain amount of powers except this place—but then he sat down and that was the end of his speech. And I thought that was kind of fascinating.

Senator Canavan just floated right off the deep end, and started comparing it to the Spanish Inquisition or stuff that was going on in the Middle Ages, and turned it into a human rights argument that everybody else should have some kind of anticorruption watchdog looking over them except federal parliamentarians because, 'What about our human rights?' It would be funny if this was not the same guy who wilfully voted for mandatory data retention for the entire population, for extraordinarily coercive powers to be placed over the media and for the ability of ASIO to snoop on practically the entire internet off the back of a single warrant. Now he is considering allowing a handful of select immigration department bureaucrats to revoke people's citizenship unilaterally. Human rights, obviously, can be disposed of for other people, but do not trespass on Senator Canavan's human rights. He does not need an anticorruption watchdog looking over his shoulder. An extraordinary contribution—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not what he said.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It actually is, Senator Macdonald. I thank you for letting me proceed in silence, which is not often your character. So far this morning it has been very, very good of you. Nonetheless, Senator Canavan's comments—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You need to stick to the truth.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

are on the record and he can speak for himself, and that is fine. I want to bring to the attention of the chamber the following: section 135.2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, which pertains to obtaining a financial advantage that people are not entitled to receive. That is the section of the Commonwealth Criminal Code that Centrelink uses to prosecute people for wrongfully claiming welfare allowances and entitlements. There are roughly, according to what I looked up this morning, 10 prosecutions a day around the country. That is what happens, if you are in improper receipt of welfare entitlements, to people who are living right on the edge of poverty or in fact well below the poverty line.

Politicians on the other hand can sail along on baseline salaries starting at around $200k a year. If we make a mistake in here the federal police do not move prosecutions under that section of the Criminal Code. We are allowed—in some cases for years—to leave it lying under the carpet and then come forward and say, 'Oops, I am sorry, I am going to repay that.' We saw the way the disgraced former Speaker of the other place handled it. She kind of dug in bitterly until it was obvious to everyone in the country, except her and the Prime Minister, that flying a chopper to a Liberal Party fundraiser and emerging like some kind of Bond villain is so far outside entitlements that it does not pass any kind of test you would want to put on it.

The gargantuan double standard that applies appears to be invisible to everyone inside this building, but I can honestly say that it is really highly visible to everybody outside. Maybe it is like asking a fish to notice water; maybe it is just really difficult because it is what we swim in in here. That sense of cocooning and isolation that occurs in this building I think touches all of us in some ways. We are in here for weeks at a time and then fly home and reconnect with the rest of the world and with the real world. That isolation distances us and is maybe why there is this denial. We should really call out, this morning, politicians from the Liberal, National and Labor parties who are saying: 'We don't need something like this to apply to us. The states and territories are different. The police forces are different. The public sectors are different. We are above all of that. We are above reproach. There is no evidence.' The reason there is no evidence of corruption at that high level of Commonwealth politics is that nobody is charged with looking for and finding it. There is that gap in the institutional architecture that people have been quite happy to gloss over, this morning, and pretend that we do not need, and it is precisely the problem.

Some senators, probably inadvertently,—I am assuming good faith on this—clearly do not understand what the bill does, so I just want to come to what the actual proposal is. The proposal is for a national integrity commission and it has three main offices, and this is where some confusion was expressed by, I think, Senator Fawcett this morning. The idea is that the agency or the entity has three limbs. One is to absorb the existing Commonwealth Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner. It is not that we are proposing to establish a new law enforcement integrity office, it is to absorb the existing functions and operations of that body that is charged with investigating alleged corruption in the AFP and in the Australian Crime Commission.

A lot of the powers that are based on the Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act of 2006 we do not propose to modify, but the two new limbs that would come into being would be the national integrity commission, which is modelled reasonably closely on the New South Wales ICAC that has been devastatingly effective at going through and routing out the unthinkable corruptionthat was rotting away at the hearts of the Liberal-National Party and the Labor Party in New South Wales. So that is one limb—the national ICAC.

I think that maybe it does make sense in your party rooms when you are working out your tactics to say: 'We are above all that. There is simply no evidence of any such thing.' Are we going to wait for the kind of gruesome corruption scandals that disfigured politics in the states that led to the establishment of those anticorruption bodies? Do we have to wait until it is just rotting out there in plain sight, or could we move pre-emptively to set up such a body to begin to restore confidence in the institution in which we hold so much trust in in here?

I forget whose contribution it was said, 'How gross of the Greens to come in here off the wake of a hideous parliamentary entitlements scandal and talk about entitlements'. Sorry, that is what we assume this chamber is for. The third limb is to establish an independent parliamentary adviser, effectively an integrity commissioner for MPs. We were talking before about that grey area between legitimate use of entitlements. For example, I was criticised in TheWest Australianfor taking a charter to the Lake Way uranium drill site out the back of Wiluna. It is about 1,000 kays from Perth. The Aboriginal mob in the north-east goldfields are really concerned about what a uranium mine on a lake bed would mean for country and culture in that part of the world. I guess I could have rung them and said, 'Come to Fremantle.' I chose to go to them. I would consider that legitimate use of a charter entitlement. It is expensive because WA is larger than Western Europe. I would consider that a legitimate entitlement. Most of us, quite frankly, use the entitlements legitimately, as far as I am concerned.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were going to an antinuclear rally.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The grey areas are where it is actually a question of interpretation. I think all of us at one time or another would have really appreciated the opportunity to pick up the phone and say, 'I am proposing to do this. Is this within entitlement or not?' We all make—

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Even you, Senator Macdonald. Nobody is accusing you of rorting entitlements, but wouldn't it have been good on some occasions to say, 'Is this within entitlement or not; I'm not sure'? And then you can—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can work it out.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, you are above all of us, Senator Macdonald—so unimpeachable!

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Clearly you think you are.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is just wonderful!

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I would ask senators to direct their debate through the chair.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should not take the bait, should I? I should not take the bait.

Part of it is around interpretation, and then some of it is actually about straightforward integrity. As far as I am concerned, when flying yourself like Cruella De Vil into a Liberal Party fundraiser, you should not need to pick up the phone to ask whether that is okay. That is just completely not okay. That is about tightening up the entitlement system to make those things just basically off limits.

But then I think that for the grey area we would all appreciate the ability to ring up somebody to support MPs and to support staff in particular on making those judgement calls, because we are employed by the taxpayers, a lot of whom are struggling under what is happening in the economy at the moment. The last thing they want to see here is the kind of flagrant abuse that has been in the papers and on the front pages in the last couple of weeks.

So we think this is a relatively uncontroversial bill. This is not a stunt. This is about bringing forward a matter that I would have thought most people would be intrinsically in support of: to complete that gap in the institutional architecture. Everybody else—no matter how flawed or how much you could critique how the anticorruption bodies around the country have run in practice, you have seen continual amendments; Premier Baird is proposing amendments to ICAC even as we speak—has to keep track with custom and practice and corruption, quite frankly. This is for us to complete that gap in the architecture and not to hold the conceit that we are above all of that.

The best way to keep us above all of that is to have a watchdog on the beat, not just around the areas of ambiguity but around the areas, quite simply, of criminal conduct and corruption. I do not think we should assume that this institution is necessarily somehow above the fray of human conduct that occurs and that requires those checks and balances and those accountability mechanisms in every other tier of society where people exercise power or enormous budgets in the public trust. We are not seeking to override state and territory anticorruption bodies; we are seeking to learn from them.

If there are other offers—and I guess I would particularly address these comments to the opposition, who have not ruled it out but are showing no interest at all in doing anything with these ideas—if you think this can be improved, if you think there are better ways of going about it, either come at us with amendments or put your own bill into the field. Announce something—anything but sitting on the fence. Given what people have been put through with Mrs Bishop's tip-of-the-iceberg scandal over the last couple of weeks, surely now is the time to come forward and finish the job.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call Senator Lines. Senator Macdonald?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I did want to say a few words.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, you have already contributed to this debate, so unless you are raising a point of order—

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let him seek leave.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I was just going to—I think Senator Ludlam is giving me leave to speak a second time.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, he may like to, but I am not going to give it to you.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk through my very serious concerns about the National Integrity Commission Bill 2013 and what the Greens are proposing. The bill seeks to establish a National Integrity Commission. It is established as an independent statutory agency and consists of an Integrity Commissioner, a law enforcement commissioner and an independent parliamentary adviser.

I just heard some of what Senator Ludlam had to say, and I have to say that, if I have any concerns about entitlement, I phone the state office. I thought that was their role. They give independent advice about what is under entitlement and what is not. Of course they are not going to put a political spin on that and, quite frankly, neither is an independent parliamentary adviser. I think that they would give the same advice that the state office do. We call them regularly for that advice.

I also think that, if the Greens were serious about this bill, a bill with such broad powers and scope, they would have canvassed with other parties and Independents the intent of the bill. The fact that the Greens have just presented this bill without consultation leads me to conclude that it is just another grandstanding effort, another stunt to appeal to their base.

I also note that in this place there are some politicians who think they are not politicians, who think there is a 'them and us'. The Greens are particularly good at this, trying to set themselves up as some kind of pure other, and this bill smacks of that 'other'.

This bill has been examined by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. In the summary of the committee's report, a number of key concerns were raised—and, yes, Senator Milne put forward a letter in response to those concerns, but it barely goes to the issues raised. The committee felt that a number of provisions in the bill breach a range of human rights: freedom of association, privilege and so on. These went to coercive investigative powers of the National Integrity Commissioner, compelling a person to provide information, to produce documents and attend investigations and hearings, and the power to arrest. It interferes with the right of a person not to incriminate themselves and limits the application of legal professional privilege. It is all starting to sound rather familiar, like another bill that certainly I strongly oppose. That just names some of the rights which are restricted or removed altogether.

The Law Council also considered:

… the threshold issue of the desirability of a federal anti-corruption body should be considered by Parliament, ideally through a Senate Committee inquiry, before more detailed proposals like the current Bill are progressed.

From a party which stood with Labor in its opposition to the reintroduction of the ABCC, this bill, the Greens bill, has powers and penalties which are similar and in fact go further than the obnoxious ABCC bill. So again, for me, it reinforces this 'them and us' mentality.

The bill seeks to establish and combine an investigative body to examine Commonwealth departments and agencies, federal politicians, our staff, the AFP and the ACC and in addition to have the officer to provide some kind of independent parliamentary advice, which I said in the opening I believe is already available. I am not sure what the wisdom is in creating a unit which would investigate a range of agencies with very different powers, all under the one agency. The AFP and the ACC operate very differently to a Commonwealth agency or statutory authority. Their mandates and authorities are completely different. It would require a bank of lawyers to sort through what could be investigated by this new Greens authority and what could not. Surely the Greens are not suggesting this new body have supreme authority over all agencies mentioned in the outline of the bill. And who is this body answerable to? What are its checks and balances to ensure that it operates in an entirely ethical way? What are the inbuilt protections to stop it becoming stacked with friendly bureaucrats? Who watches the watcher?

Given that investigations are conducted in the utmost secrecy, what happens if a state authority and the new federal body are investigating the same person? Imagine the Keystone Kops-like scenarios of listening devices being planted, mobile phones being tapped and emails being intercepted by different agencies completely ignorant of the activities of the other. What would the information-sharing protocols be between state authorities, police, the AFP and this new body be like, when the AFP is one of the bodies this new body has the power to investigate? How would data be gathered and stored? From a party that was hell-bent on data protection, this bill is open slather.

Of course accountability is important. It is critical to the jobs that we have been elected to carry out. That is why I talk to other politicians when I am not sure of an entitlement—and yes, I have tripped up. In my first three months here I overspent on staff travel, and I paid that back. That was a valuable lesson I learned, because now every time I am not sure about something I call the state office and I get it in writing. Most of us take this responsibility seriously. It is a privilege to be elected to parliament, and we as parliamentarians should never forget that. With that privilege comes a very serious responsibility that all of our actions should be transparent and that we should be held accountable for the expenditure of public moneys.

Labor has political accountability in its party platform. Of course we will consider this Greens bill, but are they prepared to listen and change the bill? This bill in similar form has been presented to the parliament on three other occasions. Therefore, I question the merits of the bill.

Of course when it suits the Greens they act in their own interests. Just yesterday in the Senate they supported the government's Medical Research Future Fund Bill 2015. Of course Labor supports medical research, but we want a fund where the awarding of funds to medical research is completely independent, and what the Greens have signed up to with this fund is one where the health minister advises the finance minister which groups get funds and what gets funded. Part of what the Greens' so-called integrity bill is seeking to expose is overt lobbying, but what the Greens agreed to yesterday in relation to the Medical Research Future Fund leaves ministers totally exposed to those who are the slickest lobbyists, with plenty of money, influence and vested interests. For years we have seen how the tobacco and alcohol lobbies use sophisticated methods, and even so-called medical research, to advance their causes. Again, if the Greens were serious about integrity they would have stood with Labor yesterday and demanded the inclusion of a proper independent body to award the research funds, but they did not do that. They signed up to a system which is open to the slickest lobbyist.

Senator Milne, in introducing this bill, made this remarkable statement:

The federal Parliament cannot end the 44th session remaining as the only jurisdiction left unchecked against the very real threat of internal corruption or maladministration across the federal public service.

Unchecked? If the Greens have evidence of internal corruption and maladministration, they should report it. If the Greens think that our Public Service is inherently a corrupt organisation, they should say it, not hide behind the pretence of some kind of 'integrity' bill. Australia has a strong record on combating corruption. Australia has a strong record of global, regional and domestic action to prevent and expose corrupt activity. We are consistently ranked as one of the least corrupt nations in the world in the Transparency International corruption perceptions index. In fact, in 2014 we were listed as the 11th-least corrupt nation out of 175 countries.

Responsibility for fighting corruption should not rest with a single body. I think that is inviting trouble into the future, and it is not clear how that body would be regulated. Fighting corruption should be ingrained in the culture and practice of our Public Service. There are several specialised agencies which already exist to promote accountability and integrity at the Commonwealth level. The distribution of responsibility is one of the great strengths in Australia's approach because it creates a strong system of checks and balances. And what the Greens are seeking to do is to take all of that responsibility for integrity and following through on corruption and put it in the one agency. That is not going to work. Fighting corruption should be part of every agency that we have, and we believe that the Australian Public Service, by and large, is a uniquely corruption-free zone.

What I would like to talk about today—and today is a very good day to do that—is political donations, completely missing in the Greens bill. That is something that needs to be addressed. Today we see in our newspapers the fact that the head of the witch hunt royal commission into trade unions has indeed been invited to a Liberal political fundraiser.

Debate adjourned.