Senate debates

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Statements by Senators

National Anti-Corruption Commission

1:00 pm

Photo of Helen PolleyHelen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

I rise to speak about why we need a national anti-corruption commission, and the main reason is Scott Morrison. To introduce into law in Australia an independent anti-corruption commission is a cornerstone of the government's agenda to restore public trust and strengthen standards of integrity in the federal government. Ask anyone and they will agree with you that trust in Australia's democratic process has dropped to an all-time low after a decade of rorts, ministerial scandals, jobs for mates and secret ministerial portfolios under the former Morrison government. To clarify, let me run up a tab of scandals that come to mind: sports rorts, community grants rorts, carpark rorts, MMI grants rorts, the former Prime Minister's Office, reckless behaviour regarding Border Force, an asylum seeker vessel on election day this year during caretaker convention and, the piece de resistance, secret ministerial portfolios held by the former Prime Minister. I put it to you: do you think Scott Morrison has secretly sworn himself in to be Santa Claus this year? No, it wouldn't be Santa Claus; it's more likely to be Ebenezer Scrooge.

History will remember the former Prime Minister as someone who secretly kept power, who secretly swore himself into five separate portfolios—in secret from his ministry and those opposite, and in secret from the Australian people. It's a shameful act which he will never live down, and our country will never live down having a prime minister who so deceitful. Those opposite know it. They may not have supported the censure motion in that other place, but they know it.

In the 121 years since Federation, what the former Prime Minister did was single-handedly undermine our country, undermine the principle of responsible government, undermine our institutions and, once again, undermine everyone's trust in our democracy. The Solicitor-General found this to be the case, and so did Virginia Bell's independent investigation. Ever since the Liberals came into power in 2013, trust in our political institutions has backed down to cynical levels. Political trust actually declined to its lowest-ever recorded level in 2019, according to the Australian electoral data. Since 2012, Australians have slipped 12 points on Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index. At the same time, our rank in the global index has fallen 11 places, from 7th to 18th. Of all the OECD countries, Australia tied with Hungary in dropping the highest number of points over this period.

If people are to regain faith in politics in our community and across the country, we must act decisively, we must be open and we must be transparent. That is why the Albanese government is ensuring a national integrity commission is independent and powerful, having the power of a standing royal commission. It would not be a toothless commission, like the previous government recommended. Mind you, it was their recommendation but they never even acted on it! It's going to deal with serious systemic corruption. It's going to be able to receive allegations from a whole range of sources. It's going to be able to hold public hearings at its discretion. All of those are important features and very important differences to the former Morrison government's model. For a moment, can you imagine adopting a Morrison model of a national integrity commission? What a farcical joke that would be after his record of impropriety.

Importantly, the Australian government's model will be able to investigate the past. That's another deficiency of the former government's proposal. All the states' and territories' anticorruption commissions have the power to explore past instances of corruption at their discretion and where they think it's appropriate. Anticorruption commissions serve the public by uncovering corruption and ensuring that members of the government, including politicians, are held accountable for their conduct. Every Australian state and territory has now established its own anticorruption commission. But, despite the fact that it overwhelmingly has public support, there is still no anticorruption commission at the federal level.

In December 2018 the Morrison government was finally dragged kicking and screaming to commit to establishing a Commonwealth integrity commission. However, three years later they had still failed to honour that commitment. The Morrison government's ever-increasing list of scandals and cover-ups has reinforced the urgent need for a powerful, transparent and independent National Anti-Corruption Commission. The Albanese government has worked with Australia's pre-eminent legal and integrity experts to develop and design the principles that will ensure that the commission is the most effective anticorruption watchdog in the country. Under these design principles the commission will have broad jurisdiction to investigate Commonwealth ministers, public servants, statutory office holders, government agencies, politicians and personal staff of politicians, carrying out its functions independently of government with discretion to commence inquiries into serious and systemic corruption on its own initiative or in response to referrals, including from whistleblowers, and complaints from the public.

To ensure the commission's independence, the commissioner and any deputy commissioner will serve for a single fixed term and have security of tenure comparable to that of a federal judge, to be overseen by a statutory bipartisan joint standing committee of the parliament, to require the commission to provide information about its work. To ensure bipartisanship and to ensure that support for the commission's work, that committee would be responsible for confirming the commission's nominations by the government, having the power to investigate allegations of serious corruption that occurred before or after its establishment. It would have the power to hold public hearings where the commission determines that it is in the public's interest to do so, being empowered to make findings of fact, including a finding of corrupt conduct, but not to make determinations of criminal liability. Findings that could constitute criminal conduct would be referred to the Australian Federal Police or the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions for further consideration. The commission would operate with procedural fairness, and its findings would be subject to judicial review.

The Albanese government's policy has for some time now been to establish the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which will make a permanent and much-needed change to standards of integrity and accountability in the federal government. The Australian people deserve nothing less. The Australian people deserve to have a federal parliament and representatives they can trust. Corruption in the federal government has been growing over recent years, and the Liberals have failed to take any action to tackle it, leaving the Commonwealth government as the only Australian government without a body dedicated to uncovering and stamping out corruption by public officials.

Maybe the enduring legacy of the Morrison Liberal government will be a national integrity commission, a legacy because of the former government's corrupt actions in government, leading to the need to establish such a commission and to try to restore integrity back into our democracy. I sincerely hope so. But there is nothing more fundamental and more important to the Australian people than to have faith and trust in our democracy. People have fought in so many wars to ensure that we have stayed a free and democratic country. In this place, in this chamber and in the other place, we all have a responsibility to make sure that there is integrity, that we stamp out any corruption and that the Australian people, when they vote, know they're going to get a government that is trustworthy, transparent and accountable for its actions. Unfortunately, over the past decade, the Morrison government, the Turnbull government and the Abbott government have led us to a situation where this legislation we've put through the parliament is so necessary. I sincerely hope this commission reflects on the past actions of the former government.