Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Time's up, Prime Minister. Australians want a national anticorruption commission. There's been the sports rorts scandal, the $30 million that this government paid for airport land that's worth a tenth of that, the use of a forged document by the energy minister, unjustifiable payments to executives and the head of the corporate watchdog having to step aside—and the list goes on and on. This government is mired in sleaze and scandal, and whenever the trail of suspicion leads to a minister this Prime Minister's response is not to enforce the standards demanded by his own statement of ministerial standards. No, like the marketing man he is, this Prime Minister's response is to frantically try to cover up the sleaze, usually through the use of some powerless, secretive sham of an inquiry, ideally conducted by a mate. This government has been doing all it can to delay establishing a national anticorruption commission and it has been sitting on legislation that it's had for almost a year.

Meanwhile, the independent Auditor-General has been doing what he can to ensure taxpayers' money isn't rorted. Just this week, we have learnt that the government has been undermining the Auditor-General, too, slashing his budget by almost 20 per cent since 2013. The ever-growing list of scandals surrounding the Morrison government shows why Australia needs a powerful and independent Audit Office and a powerful and independent national integrity commission— (Time expired)