Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Urquhart for her question. The answer to her question, in short, is no. The model that Senator Cash was speaking about in the chamber just before is a model that has been carefully developed to ensure that it focuses where an integrity commission should focus in terms of the elimination of corruption, tackling corruption in public office and ensuring that public officials and office holders are held to account and that you do effectively prevent that.

It builds upon what is a very strong existing framework in the Commonwealth government. We should never underplay the important role that our existing integrity agencies, police agencies and others play in relation to ensuring that the law is upheld in Australia and that we do have one of the best systems, arguably, in the world in terms of transparency, accountability and the legal arrangements that apply in our country to ensure that in this country everyone is held to account and everyone operates within the law.

But the government recognises the opportunity to enhance that framework, and that's the work that Senator Cash and her predecessor have done in developing this model. They have developed a model that is underpinned by hundreds of pages of legislation. I remind Senator Urquhart and her colleagues that the Labor Party's integrity commission is a two-page glossy brochure at present. So Senator Cash has hundreds of pages of legislation, that, if the Labor Party were willing to back it, could be passed through this parliament. Senator Urquhart, you and your team have two pages. It's a nice glossy brochure—congratulations to those who did the design work—but of course it's not actually an integrity commission model at all.