Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with great pleasure to speak on the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2). This is the sixth time, over 10 years, that the Greens have introduced a bill for a federal anticorruption body. We are hopeful that today this bill will pass the Senate. Clearly it's long overdue. There have been a litany of examples of dodgy conduct that I personally consider to be corrupt conduct and that there is no body to independently investigate federally. Looking around the country, every state or territory now has an anticorruption body except us here in Canberra. You'd have to be living under a rock to think that there's nothing to see and there's no need for this body. For 10 years we've been pushing for this. It's clearly needed. You just have to look at the recent scandals and the influence of big money on politics more generally to know that an anticorruption body is desperately needed and is going to be very busy indeed.

As I said, for 10 years we've been pushing for this. Initially we were laughed at and ridiculed. It was said: 'There's no corruption. There's nothing to see.' Well, LOL. I think no-one in the community shares that view. They all know. In fact, 85 per cent of people think that politicians are corrupt. So, folks, we've got a problem here. We've got a problem with the actual level of corruption and we've got a problem with the perceptions of the level of corruption. We need to address both of those issues. Having a federal independent anticorruption body—or a national integrity commission, as I've titled it—could help not only address the underlying issues but restore people's confidence in our democracy and turn around those 85 per cent of people who think we're all corrupt. It could demonstrate that we are not acting in our private interest and we're not on the take from donors, vested interests and lobbyists but actually we're here to make decisions for the public interest, for the community's good and for the sake of the planet. I think that's what our Australian community deserves. This is a plan for a national integrity commission. My colleague in the House, the member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, will be similarly introducing this once more to the House today.

I want to pay tribute to former senator Bob Brown, former senator Lee Rhiannon and former member for Indi, Cathy McGowan, who've all had a strong role to play over those 10 years in trying to put legislation before this parliament for an anticorruption body. As I was saying, initially everybody laughed at us but, as seems to be the pace of history, eventually everyone's come on board.

I am really pleased that about 2½ years ago the Labor Party changed their mind and said, 'Yes, we agree. We need to do something about this. We need a federal anticorruption body.' We welcome that. And even this government last November finally agreed that rather than this being a fringe issue, as the Prime Minister had then described it, the Australian people deserved a federal anticorruption body. This is wonderful news.

The key parties here, and many on the crossbench—and I will come to them and I welcome their support as well—all agree something needs to happen, but how long are the Australian people going to have to wait? It has been 10 years now. They shouldn't have to wait another 10 years for us to actually see some action.

The government put out a discussion paper last November. It's been widely criticised as too weak, not having a broad enough scope of powers, not having the ability to conduct hearings in public and not being properly resourced. So, yes, it's been criticised as being very weak. We have concerns about that. But what's happened since then? Absolutely nothing. We have seen no movement on it at all. It is not even on the list of legislation that this government wants to pass through the House, or even introduce to the House, this year. The government is signalling that this is not a priority for them.

If you say you want something done, you can't just then do nothing. You should act on it. We are giving the parliament the chance today to deliver on the principles, that you all say you're committed to, for an anticorruption body. Here is a model that has been widely scrutinised. It's gone to inquiry. It has the support of a cohort of former judges who have been lobbying and advocating in this space for a strong anticorruption body.

Some of the key features of this model are that it could conduct hearings in public. That would be at the discretion of the commissioner. One of the strong principles, and one of the success stories of the various state ICACs around the country, or corruption commissions—call them what you may—has been the deterrent effect. If people know that they might get caught out there is a strong disincentive away from corrupt conduct. So the ability for these hearings to be held in public is a very important strength of this model. The government's model, of course, wants to do it all in secret. That's not going to make a difference to anyone at all. Having public hearings is absolutely crucial. Having the body well-resourced and independent is also crucial.

There are various other moves afoot today, that we will come to in motions, for the Senate to look at this conduct itself—well and good, but actually we need an independent body to investigate the litany of dodgy transactions and dodgy dealings that I will go through shortly. So the key features include public hearings and an independent body that is properly resourced. We want this body do have the powers of a royal commission. It needs to be able to compel evidence. It would then make findings of fact that could go to the criminal courts for proper prosecution. This is a model that is watertight. The experts agree that this is what's needed. It's a strong model. It's independent. It would be properly resourced. This could get the job done.

I am yet to come up against any specific concerns with this bill except maybe, 'We don't want to vote for a Greens' bill or gee the timing is poor.' Well, sorry folks, that's not going to fly. The Australian people deserve a democracy that works for them and they deserve to have confidence that politicians are not acting corruptly, acting with conflicts of interest or receiving donations that are then influencing the decisions they take. The public deserve a democracy that actually works for them and this body can help deliver that.

I want to go through some of the quite sobering examples in recent times of why this body is needed—and I may well run out of time because there are so many of them! We've got the revolving door of lobbyists and politicians. In fact, within that cooling off period even former ministers, in breach of the ministerial standards, go off to work for the very bodies that they are meant to have been regulating. It's pretty clear that the ministerial standards are not being upheld and that there is no mechanism to enforce them being upheld. That's the revolving lobbying door that we have been banging on about for an awfully long time.

We have examples like 'nanny-gate' with our dear old Minister Dutton, the member for Dickson, which is in my home state of Queensland, who's prepared to do favours for mates and let their au pairs come in but won't do any justice for a Tamil family in Biloela who are desperate to return to their adopted community—to a community who love and want them—where they were working, contributing and raising their children who were born here. Minister Dutton won't do them any favours. He won't use his discretion to help those meritorious folk, but he's happy to do a favour for a mate who wants an au pair to come in and help out with childcare work. Again, there are double standards and it's something that could potentially keep a federal anticorruption body very busy.

You then have the Paladin scandal where massive contracts were awarded to a two-bit company that has barely any track record and a shack on Kangaroo Island to run the security procedures in our offshore detention hell holes. Again, how on earth could that happen? It harks back to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation—another very small organisation, meritorious though it may be, that suddenly got a huge whack of dough. It didn't ask for it. There was no tender process and no scrutiny, and suddenly it's doing the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's job. The government has effectively privatised the management and protection of the reef through giving a huge amount of money—almost half a billion dollars—to a private organisation to do, in my view, what is the government's work. The board of that organisation is stacked with pro fossil fuel operatives.

There are so many examples. Just look at Ministers Frydenberg and Taylor. We have indeed been looking at them through various other means. There is not only the dodgy sale of water in the Murray-Darling Basin but also the interference in threatened species protection—the listing for the grasslands near the member for Hume's personal residence and his interference to see if that listing could be removed so that a company, which he has some shareholding in, won't be investigated further or prosecuted and he can then clear with impunity, and perhaps some others can do the same too. Favours for mates, whether they be fellow politicians or whether they be donors—it's got to stop; it's not right. And, if 85 per cent of people think that politicians are corrupt, you have to ask why on earth we don't have a body to oversight this sort of conduct and send a clear message that politicians need to stop looking out for their private interests; they've got to start acting in the public interest. We get well paid enough. We shouldn't need further kickbacks from donors or promises of future jobs. We should be here doing what's best for the community, for the public interest and for the planet. This body is so desperately needed. I've outlined how the features could really not only clean up politics but send a strong deterrent message against corruption.

The flipside to this is that we desperately need donations reform. The influence of big money on our politics is hideous. This isn't America and yet we have $100 million in donations from large corporates that have been made to both sides of politics since 2012. Is it any wonder that the community think that they don't matter anymore and that politicians just feather their own nest or do favours for their donors? It's because that's what happens. We saw our mining tax law change because of the influence of the mining industry. We saw them topple a Prime Minister. That's going back six or seven years ago now. We've seen other pay-for-access, pay-for-policy outcomes, and that is just heartbreaking. We are so blessed in Australia to have a democracy. Let's make it work properly. Let's get the influence of big money out of the decision-making process and actually start doing our jobs properly. This ICAC would be a strong part of that, and we will continue to work for donations reform like we've been similarly doing for 10 years.

We've had fruitful discussions with folk. I really am optimistic and hopeful that today we will see this bill pass the Senate. It would be a really wonderful day for democracy if the Senate could send a message to the House that, actually, politics should be above private interests. Politics should be about acting in the public interest—in the public interest of the planet and the community. That's our opportunity today. We will see how the votes fall. I don't expect we'll get support from the government on this one, because they've proposed a very weak body. Clearly, they were dragged to the table pre-election, trying to get this off the agenda. They put out a discussion paper—not even a draft bill; just a mere discussion paper—that has been so roundly condemned by anyone who knows anything about this as an absolute toothless tiger. In fact, it's been said that a weak anticorruption commission would be worse than no anticorruption commission at all.

The government want to have two new criminal offences created of criminal corruption. They are pretty cool with standard, run-of-the-mill corruption; they want this new 'worst of the worst' offence of criminal corruption to be created. And that's all their body can investigate—not all the dodginess, the conflicts of interest and the misuse of personal influence that are happening at the minute, which our body can look at; not any breaches of ministerial standards or codes of conduct, which this body could look at; just this 'worst of the worst' criminal corruption.

Of course, they would only have hearings in secret—the public wouldn't know about this; I can't see there being much of a disincentive there—and the body isn't even resourced as fully as their own department recommended that it should be. And where is it? We've seen no progress whatsoever. We've had the election. You won. Where is the body? You promised that this was happening; in February you said it was imminent. Well, it is September now, and we've seen absolutely nothing.

So part of the reason for today's bill is that we have been patient for 10 years and we're out of it; we actually want this done now. We've got a model that stands up to scrutiny, that could do the job, and that I hope the government will actually vote for. If you're not going to vote for it, then at least fix your own bill up and adopt some of these features which I hope the Senate will endorse today—and certainly the experts have endorsed—to make this body a useful one that will start to restore the confidence the Australian people deserve to have in our democracy.

So it's been a long time coming. I hope this bill passes today. If it doesn't, well, we'll just reintroduce it again. We are not going to give up on this. The Australian people deserve a democracy that works for them. They deserve to have people in this building making decisions in the interests of the public and the planet, not in the interests of their own future employment or the re-election coffers of their party. I mentioned the $100 million of donations from big corporates to both sides of politics already. When you look at the breakdown of that figure, there was $5 million from fossil fuel companies over the last four years. Is it any wonder that we have pathetically weak climate policy and no climate laws. You get what you pay for in this building, and that is an absolute travesty. It's no wonder that 85 per cent of people think politicians are corrupt.

Queensland is on fire at the moment—a week out of winter. This is why we need strong climate laws. This is why we need the influence of fossil fuel money off these decision-makers. This is why we need a federal anticorruption body to make sure that people in here are acting in the best interests of the planet and the community, not in the best interests of their donors or the lobbyists that they have met with.

I'm looking forward to the vote on this. I've talked about some of the scandals. Sadly, they are not limited to the government benches; there has been unsatisfactory conduct from both sides of politics. In fact, just last week at the New South Wales ICAC we saw a scandal where donations were made in an Aldi shopping bag in an attempt to avoid the ban on property developer donations. Again, the New South Wales ICAC has been a very busy organisation—as has the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission and many of the anticorruption bodies around the states. It is foolish to think that we don't need a body like this at the federal level. I am pleased that everyone now agrees that we need one, but we need to see some action. It's past time for talk and it's past time for a weak, toothless model that won't fix any of this conduct.

The Australian people really do deserve better; this is not just a line. We are meant to be taking decisions in their best interests. If we don't have a body like this, how do you expect to turn around the perception that politicians are in it for themselves? I hope that people in here are driven by the public interest. Let's actually put some proof to that. Let's demonstrate that by supporting this bill today. We have a strong model. We have hope that this bill will pass today. The pressure is then on the government. Are they going to keep turning a blind eye to all of these scandals that keep mounting—in recent times, mostly on their side?

If you vote against this the Australian public will ask: 'What are you trying to hide?' And they would be right to ask that. There have been so many breaches lately; you can't swing a cat without coming across another scandal. Scandals that previously would have toppled ministers—of their own volition, they would have said, 'I'll stand down. This is too embarrassing for the edifice of parliament, too embarrassing for the government'—are now just swept under the carpet and they try and carry on as if it doesn't really matter. Well, government standards might have dropped but public standards haven't. If we want to engage people in this precious democracy of theirs and if we want to deliver decisions that are good for them and advance their interests, then we need to restore that confidence that decisions are made in their interests and we need an anticorruption body to do that.

So it's with great pleasure that I speak on the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2), the sixth in a long line of bills to establish an important body. I am very much looking forward to the vote today. I urge the parties that I've had fruitful discussions with over the winter break to support this bill. If they do, it will pass this place, and what a wonderful outcome that will be and what pressure that will then create on the government to do a decent job. They could even vote for this version—I would welcome that—or they could at least strengthen their own very, very weak version, which we've seen neither hide nor hair of for almost the last year. There have been 10 years of their saying this wasn't needed, a brief moment of their saying, 'Sure, we'll do something,' and then something widely condemned as just massively weak and toothless and worse than doing nothing at all. Here's your chance to get some suggestions. Vote for this or at least lift some of the good ideas in it and adopt them in your bill. I commend this bill to the Senate.