David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'm going to try and finish this. I rise to speak in support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Combatting Foreign Bribery) Bill 2023. As has been said, this is the third attempt to get this legislation through. This bill makes much-needed updates to the Criminal Code Act to make it easier to investigate and prosecute offenders. I welcome the creation of a new corporate offence of failure to prevent bribery of a foreign public official. This change is supported by the OECD, the Law Council and others and is a long-overdue improvement. The prohibition on tax deduction claims for foreign bribery also enjoys widespread community support.

While these are significant improvements to combat foreign bribery, there are further opportunities to strengthen the legislation. We've seen evidence and we've heard much talk about deferred prosecution agreement schemes elsewhere. Clearly, establishing a DPA scheme in Australia is worthy of consideration, and I thank Senator Scarr for his advocacy on this important issue. I found his additional comments to the committee report on the bill helpful and insightful. I'll be moving a second reading amendment that calls for consideration of a DPA scheme in Australia. In my view, the model put forward by the coalition in Senator Cash's amendments is imperfect. Any scheme must prioritise transparency and avoid creating a two-tiered system where corporate criminals are extensively protected in a way that private individuals are not. Clearly more reform is also needed to abolish facilitation payments, which we know can, in many cases, be bribery by a different name. The parliament should give consideration to using procurement as a lever to combat foreign bribery. Companies convicted of foreign bribery should not be winning contracts with the Australian government, and a whole-of-government debarment scheme could prevent that from happening.