Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There is, and has been for some time, a crisis of confidence. That crisis of confidence exists within our community—the people we represent here in this place. What they are losing confidence in—and, in many cases, have lost confidence in—is the capacity of those of us that sit in this place to take decisions in the public interest and not in our own self-interest. This is very serious because it threatens the social contract that underpins things like the rule of law and, ultimately, the very fabric of our democracy. It is episodes like those we are discussing today that threaten that social contract. They continually erode the community's confidence in the way we behave in this place. Let's be very clear about this: the allegations are against sitting ministers—people that are paid to make decisions in the public interest and who ought to be expressly prevented from using their ministerial powers to make decisions based on their own self-interest.

It's important that people realise that yesterday the government and Labor voted down the Greens' amendment to broaden the Pyne inquiry into the breach of ministerial standards to include Minister Taylor and Minister Frydenberg. That was the collective position held by the major parties in this place, and I am yet to hear a reason from the Labor Party for why they would do that. Remember, this is a Labor Party that seems hell-bent on collapsing and agreeing with pretty much every arch conservative proposal put forward by this shocking government. I've said it before, and I will say it again: if Labor's not going to do its job as an opposition, the Greens will step up and do that job for them. Only a few weeks ago, we saw Labor collapse and support the dismantling of the progressive tax system in Australia. We've seen today that Labor is going to collapse on legislation that sets up Peter Dutton as judge and jury when judging whether Australian citizens, including children as young as 14, ought to be allowed back into the country under certain circumstances. We've also seen Labor consistently refuse to take a position on raising Newstart after they went to the election with a wishy-washy policy for a review into Newstart. I invite people to contrast that with the Greens' policy, which is for a $75 increase, which is what the sector is calling for.

Yesterday, when the government and Labor voted down the amendment to broaden the Pyne inquiry into a breach of ministerial standards to include Minister Taylor and Mr Frydenberg, we saw a protection racket. This is a major party protection racket that's part of the cosy deals that are made every single parliament between whichever of the majors find themselves in government and whichever of the majors find themselves in opposition. Let me explain why this protection racket is so important, even to whichever of the major parties sits in opposition—currently, the Australian Labor Party. It is so important because they don't want the dodgy deals their ministers made last time they were in government exposed to the disinfectant of sunlight. That's why this is so important to both of the major parties. The government protect their ministers from inquiries into their shoddy dealings, and Labor are protecting their former ministers, because they know that they have former ministers who have walked in to cushy jobs post their political careers, lobbying and representing significant industry sectors in this country. That's what this stitch-up is all about: a mutual protection racket designed to enable ongoing shonky dealings. Of course, the outcome is that the community loses yet more confidence in all of us in this place.

That is simply not good enough, and the Greens will stand up and point this out at every available opportunity. It's not good enough that we do not have a federal anticorruption authority with true independence from government and with real teeth to address these kinds of issues. It's time that we had one in this country. It's well past time that we have an anticorruption authority.

We also need a significant review of ministerial standards, and that needs to be done independent of the Prime Minister. It is in any Prime Minister's political interests that his or her ministers are not found to be in breach of ministerial standards. Given the shonky behaviours that we've seen from ministers from both parties over a long period of time, the easiest way to reach that aim of not having any ministers in breach is to simply ensure that the ministerial standards set such a low bar that even a dodgy minister can clear it. That's the situation that we find ourselves in today, and that is the true shame of this debate.

We had the government come in to start this debate and make a response to the Senate—a response which my colleague Senator Waters described as 'completely inadequate'. It didn't even attempt to address some of the significant questions that have been raised about ministerial standards. It didn't even try to address those things. That is the shame here, and it is why we are seeing this critical and ongoing erosion of trust. If people don't think there's a trust deficit in this country in relation to those of us who sit in this chamber, those of us who sit in the other place and, in particular, those of us that have the honour and, importantly, the responsibility of being appointed ministers of the Crown, they simply need to go out into our communities, into the streets, into the backyard barbecues and into the pubs and clubs and have a few conversations with real Australians, because I'm here to tell you that trust in politics and trust in our democracy is at an all-time low.

We have a collective responsibility to start what will be a long and difficult road to restore that trust. We could do that if we were collectively prepared to take the actions that need to be taken to begin to rebuild community confidence in politics, in our democracy and in this parliament. But there's a lack of political will to do it. The reason for that is the major party stitch-up, the major party protection racket, that is agreed between whoever happens to be in government and whoever happens to be in opposition, because the government of the day want to protect their ministers from exposure over their dodgy dealings and the opposition of the day want to protect their former ministers from the same. It's not good enough. This parliament deserves better. More importantly, the Australian people deserve better.

Question agreed to.