Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] A federal Labor government will establish a powerful, transparent and independent national anticorruption commission. The people of Australia are, frankly, sick of this federal government taking the mickey out of the taxpayer dollar and using it for their own purposes. We must restore accountability and transparency in government. There's been program after program. We have had sports rorts, where my community missed out on a much-needed and highly sought after sporting and community facility. We've had car park rorts, where only one car park was committed to in WA in the seat of the member for Canning. That hasn't even started yet. There was the airport land scandal in Western Sydney. Think of the extraordinary waste of money by this government, rolling out money for electoral and political advantage against the advice of public servants—a la sports rorts. The failure to comply with process, guidelines and criteria is just gross. The Prime Minister's office seems to have a dedicated rorts team filled with colour-coded spreadsheets.

The sports issue has been going on for years. In 2018 One Nation former senator Peter Georgiou handed out $3 million worth of federal government funding to a sports club in Perth on behalf of the government, leaving many questions hanging. Why was it him presenting this grant and not the government? Was this quid pro quo or something else? Then there was the member for Moore, who left us wanting an integrity commission. In 2018 he was promoting a lobster business in which he had financial links and earnt commissions through the striking of export deals. There was the heck of a sale in early 2019 when the Minister for Finance at the time struck a massive deal, a pay nothing now, pay nothing later deal with Hello World, where he received multiple free flights to Singapore from a Liberal donor. We need an national anti-corruption commission, because Australians have had enough. The Commonwealth absolutely needs one.

There's the member for Fadden, who was dumped for using his position for private interests but he is back. Despite numerous disasters under his watch, he maintains his ministerial pay cheque. Then there's the member for Farrer, who was sacked after an expenses scandal and then rewarded with a new portfolio. There's also Senator Cash, who misled the Senate multiple times and wouldn't cooperate with the AFP about an investigation. She has been rewarded with, wait for it, the position of Australia's Attorney-General. Then there's the member for Hume. Well, it's hard to stay across all of his scandals. All I have to say is, 'Well done, Angus.' There's also the member for Dickson, who has overseen numerous contractual disasters, used ministerial powers to prevent deportation of au pairs and ignored responsibilities in relation to dealing with money-laundering matters. You would think that our Treasurer would be rather more careful with money, but he handed over $444 million to a small foundation without a competitive tender process or even an application for the money. There's also the Minister for Health, who has questions to answer about two lucrative MRI licences that were awarded to Liberal Party connections. The list goes on. Perhaps the real issue here is that, if the government did install an anti-corruption commission they would have no-one left in their cabinet.

The Morrison government's failure to fulfil its promises is allowing corruption to go unchecked and enabling ministers to avoid being held to account for their actions. But worst, in a sense, is that it is undermining the public's confidence in the integrity of our Australian government. An Albanese Labor government will put an end to the Morrison government's shameful inaction by establishing a powerful, transparent and independent national anticorruption commission that will investigate serious and systemic corruption in federal government. It will also take on the learnings from the equivalent state commissions across the country about what works and what doesn't. Critically, the commissioner will be independent and only serve a single term with appointments requiring confirmation by a bipartisan statutory joint parliamentary oversight committee. We need to see a powerful anticorruption commission at a national level, and only Labor will deliver one.