Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

Let me firstly point out that Australia does have very robust anticorruption arrangements in place at a federal level. We have a robust multifaceted approach to combatting corruption. But, having said that and as we have said for some time, we continue to consider and to assess what improvements can be made to further strengthen that system. But, with these sorts of suggestions, the devil is always in the detail. For example, on the bill that's been put forward by crossbenchers in the other place, our advice is that, if that were legislated in its current form, a journalist with the ABC or SBS, because these are taxpayer funded organisations, could find themselves compelled to answer questions, to reveal sources and, indeed, to release legal advice that they have obtained in the context of various stories that they might run from time to time. I suspect that across this chamber there would be broad consensus that that would be an entirely undesirable situation.

The broader point I'm making here is that I think we all agree that there ought to be anticorruption arrangements in place that are as effective as possible. Australia has a very good track record internationally when it comes to anticorruption frameworks and measures. Indeed, we are recognised internationally as one of the least corrupt jurisdictions in the world. But there's also room for improvement. The initiatives that you might want to pursue to improve the current framework ought to actually genuinely make things better rather than lead to all sorts of undesirable and unintended consequences. That is the process that needs to be undertaken always by the parliament: to carefully consider whether proposals that are on the table actually would make things better rather than make things worse.