Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I do not agree with the member for Wentworth when he argues that Australia is travelling relatively well—although I must commend the member for Wentworth for being the first government speaker during this debate to actually stand up and do a good job of exploring what we both agree is a very, very important issue. It is absolutely astounding that his two predecessors made light of this debate and instead gave presentations that were thick with denial and distraction. That was not in the public interest.

The undeniable fact is that regard for the political class in this country is at an all-time low. In fact, many members of the community hold politicians in complete contempt and disdain. They lampoon us at every opportunity, and that's entirely warranted. There have been so many episodes which help to explain the collapse in public confidence in politicians in this country, and there was another episode just today in the Senate. It wasn't just that there was a lack of integrity that the parliament has overturned medevac but that it was underpinned by a secret deal, because the public is held to not be responsible or worthy enough to know what this secret deal is. The fact is that the secret deal has been covered up by someone in the Senate. Not everyone can be right in the Senate. Senator Lambie says there is a deal; Senator Cormann says there is no deal. Well, they can't both be right. One of them has to be misleading us. No wonder the public is sick and tired of politics, politicians and some of the political parties.

It is a great shame that not all of the government members are in here, like the crossbench are, talking about how we can reclaim the public's trust. Surely, if there were just a few measures we could grab and implement, or at least talk about today, wouldn't the top thing on the list be the establishment of a federal integrity commission? That, more than anything, would go a long way towards reclaiming the public's trust because for once they would see we have an interest in integrity in this place; for once we would be prepared to put in place effective measures to restore integrity. We don't need this dodgy integrity commission that the government is talking about currently. We need a strong body, a body that can look at corruption in all its forms, including non-criminal corruption—things that should be criminal, like nepotism, cronyism and rorting of allowances. We need an integrity commission that could have public hearings so that the public can go in there, or at least watch it on television, see what's going on and see that something is being done about the collapse of integrity in the political class. We need an integrity commission that could take referrals from the public and from whistleblowers. We need an integrity commission that can make findings of guilt. That's what this country needs right now, not the dodgy construct that has been proposed by the government.

If there were another thing on a short list that we could just grab quickly to do something about strongly to help restore the public's faith in the political class, it's donation reform. It is an undeniable fact that no person or company—or government, I might add—hands over a large sum of money without expecting some sort of return on that investment. There are people and companies handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars and, over time, tens of millions of dollars; how can we believe anything other than that they want a return on that investment?

If we could grab a few things quickly and implement them within months, how about better laws to protect media freedom and better laws to protect whistleblowers? If we aren't going to tidy up our act, then at least others can shine a light on us and shine a light on the misconduct that some people in this place are undeniably guilty of. But what's the government doing? It's doing everything it can to not bring about effective media protections. It's doing everything it can to ignore the fact that our current Public Interest Disclosure Act is woefully inadequate. For a start, security officials, parliamentarians and their staff are explicitly excluded from the whistleblower act. Doesn't that alone say an awful lot about us in this place? It says that we will do everything in our power to protect ourselves and ignore the disdain held by the community for the political class in this country. We're a laughing stock. We're lampooned at every opportunity. We should be in here debating, discussing and progressing ways to remedy that as soon as possible.

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