Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I can guarantee you, friend, that I have more bugs to bear and bones to pick with the former MLC from New South Wales than you ever could, but the point to make on this is that the corruption was exposed by the New South Wales ICAC. It would be naive to suggest that corruption such as this stops at a state border. It would be naive to suggest that the corruption we saw with the Australian Wheat Board, with the bribes and kickbacks to rogue dictators in the Middle East, and the corruption we saw with the Reserve Bank subsidiary Securency were isolated incidents—or the serious corruption that's being alleged and unveiled in a recent Four Corners program about the administration of water licences and the allocation of water rights in New South Wales and Queensland. Only a fool—or perhaps the member for Fairfax or the member for Bradfield—would suggest these are isolated incidents or that the tendency to corruption stops at a state border.

If the members are serious about both the perception and the reality of corruption in public life, they will put aside this unnecessary bill, which is attempting to rewrite the history of the 2016 election, and join with Labor and introduce legislation in this session of parliament to create a broad based anticorruption body in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. That's what genuine legislation looks like. That is what a government that is truly committed to improving the tenure of public discourse, the administration of government and the conduct of politics in this country would do—not this nonsense which the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has said is unnecessary and duplicates existing offences. Quite rightly, the committee has come to these conclusions on the basis that this is nothing more than a political stunt, an attempt to rewrite the history of the 2016 election.

There was no sadder sight in Australian politics than the Prime Minister hiding behind the gilded gates of his Wentworth mansion too nervous to come out and face the media—let alone his own party, who were ropable because of his incompetent conduct of the 2016 election campaign. If the Prime Minister or the cabinet members who have approved this legislation are looking for a scapegoat, looking for an avenue through which to vent, I suggest they look at their own behaviour and not at the legitimate campaigning of Australian Labor, which has proudly campaigned on the virtues and the necessity of Medicare for over 33 years. The Australian people aren't mugs. They take offence when members opposite stand up in this place and say they were somehow conned into exercising their votes in the way they did at the 2016 election. Labor doesn't think the Australian people are mugs. We think they've got a pretty good read on what that mob over there want to do to Medicare and the plans they have for this country. So I ask the other side to step back and have a look at what we really need to do if we're going to address corruption and the perception of corruption in the Commonwealth government and its administration. Join with Labor and work with us to draft and bring into this place, in this session, a national integrity commission bill. We will all vote for it, and Australia will be a better place as a result of it.

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