Division Description Changes — Business — Consideration of Legislation — 9th Feb 2022

Change	Division
senate vote 2022-02-09#1 Edited by mackay staff on 2022-08-19 16:04:23	Title ~~Business — Consideration of Legislation~~ Business - Consideration of Legislation - Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020 Description ~~<p class="speaker">Rex Patrick</p>~~ ~~<p>I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020, as circulated.</p>~~ ~~<p>Leave not granted.</p>~~ ~~<p>Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in my name, I move:</p>~~ <p class="italic">That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020.</p> <p>I will quickly address a concern that Senator Ruston will no doubt raise in her response to my short contribution here. She will say this is a stunt, brought on to waste government business time, but it's not.</p> <p>One of the roles of the Senate is to make sure that we oversee the government, to make sure that the government does its work properly and to make sure that the government meets the commitments it has made to the Australian public. I draw the Senate's attention back to 13 December 2018, when the Prime Minister promised the Australian public that, were he to be given the opportunity to govern again, he would introduce a federal integrity commission bill. I don't know whether that was a 'core' promise; I don't know whether it was a promise. I don't know whether it was a commitment or an undertaking. I don't know which one of those it was or how the Prime Minister may consider each of those sorts of commitments. But I know that the Australian public would expect that, prima facie, if the Prime Minister says that then the Prime Minister will do that. But he hasn't. Either he was lying to the public or he has simply misled them. It's not like we're at the start of the 46th Parliament; we're at the end. There was a commitment by the Prime Minister to deal with a federal integrity commission, and it has not been met. That's why this is urgent and that's why this must be dealt with today, otherwise we'll have run out of time.</p> <p>We don't have a bill that the government has brought to the chamber, so there's a bill that I've tabled which has been worked up by eminent experts in this area, former judicial officers included—and thanks to the member for Indi, Helen Haines—and we need to deal with it. We need to deal with this urgently. We have a situation where a government went into the last election, knowing full well that there's no federal integrity commission, engaging in car park rorting. I say that with the backing of the Auditor-General. We find that in the Treasurer's own seat four car parks were allocated. One of those car parks came in at a cost of $220,000 per car park.</p> <p>Let me explain how this principle works. We are supposed to take taxpayers' money and spend it on the basis of need and on the basis of merit. That's what we're supposed to do. Yet, against the rules, against the objectives of the grant program, the Treasurer announced grants to his own electorate. If you are a public official and you subvert process and give money for the purposes of personal benefit—that being getting re-elected—that is corruption, and we have to be able to deal with that. We've seen sports rorts, where people or communities were given a grant not on the basis of merit but on the basis of a colour coded spreadsheet. That is wrong. We've seen water purchases that well exceed market values. We find that, in one instance, the department seemed not able to understand a valuation properly.</p> <p>We've got blind trust, where ministers are getting paid a million dollars from unknown contributors and the government is not standing tall and saying, 'That's wrong.' There are so many issues that we need to have addressed, in relation to corruption, so that people can regain confidence in this place and in the other place. That's why we need to urgently deal with this bill. I ask that senators support my motion to suspend.</p> ~~<p class="speaker">Simon Birmingham</p>~~ <p>The government does not support Senator Patrick's motion to suspend. The government does not support it—on the basis that we have a well-developed draft legislation established, published, in relation to the Commonwealth Integrity Commission.</p> <p>There are many misconceptions peddled by some in relation to these debates and they're peddled in the context of, seemingly, wanting to create an impression that there is no anticorruption framework in Australia, which is patently untrue. We have existing frameworks that tackle corruption, clearly, already. Under the frameworks, multiple agencies across the Commonwealth government have responsibilities for preventing, detecting and responding to corruption.</p> <p>These agencies, such as the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, bring specialist skills to address corruption across law enforcement agencies. The Australian Federal Police have the power, and work across partner agencies right across the Commonwealth, to leverage their expertise and capabilities, information and data collection capabilities, to respond to serious and complex corruption offences, including any allegations of fraud or bribery or the like, under existing corruption laws. The Commonwealth Ombudsman considers and investigates complaints where people believe they've been treated unfairly by an Australian government department. Even in relation to matters such as our own expenses, we have the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority that advises and reports on expenses of parliamentarians and their staff. This is set within laws, clearly enabled and established, that deal with corrupt conduct and all of the other elements of scrutiny applied within this parliament and a free media across our democracy. But we have seen benefit in acknowledging that having greater consolidation, greater coordination, across those different entities and efforts for handling corruption matters would be a positive.</p> <p>That's why we've gone through an extensive process in relation to developing the legislation around the Commonwealth Integrity Commission. The integrity commission that we propose, backed by several hundred pages of legislation, detailed modelling, will investigate the most serious forms of criminal corruption that threaten good public administration; however, it won't duplicate the roles of existing bodies that already investigate corruption.</p> <p>The arrangement we're proposing reflects the different nature of the corruption risks that exist across law enforcement bodies as opposed to those that exist in the public sector. When we talk about the public sector, we mean of course across the public sector from office holders at ministerial level right through the Public Service and public sector. Where the public sector division of our proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission found evidence of a criminal offence, it would refer a matter, rightly, to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, ensuring that the courts remain the relevant arbiter of whether someone is innocent or guilty of a corrupt offence.</p> <p>We have put in place funding arrangements for the Commonwealth Integrity Commission: the 2019-20 budget committed more than $106 million of support for that in addition to more than $40 million for the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. The substantial investment that we've made is in stark contrast to the very low levels of budgeting and support that had been provided under previous governments for anti-corruption and related activities and enforcement.</p> <p>We've already implemented phase one of our Commonwealth Integrity Commission by expanding the jurisdiction of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to cover additional agencies: the ATO, ASIC, APRA and the ACCC. The work is there; the legislation has been developed. What we're very clear about is that we're not interested in establishing Star Chamber type processes. We're not interested in establishing processes that are simply there as political playthings. So, the invitation stands to the crossbench, the Greens, the Labor Party: make clear your support for the model the government has developed for an integrity commission. That will clearly bring together the elements of being able to further strengthen and uphold Australia's anti-corruption framework and we will see that legislation passed. We're not interested in entertaining a model that simply creates opportunities for more political grandstanding that becomes a kangaroo court or a show trial model. This has got to be done in the proper way that our government has proposed.</p> ~~<p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p>~~ <p>Labor will be supporting the suspension of standing orders this morning, and we certainly support the motion being moved by Senator Patrick, should the suspension get up. We have been calling for an anti-corruption commission for some time. The government promised a national anti-corruption commission 1,154 days ago. Then today we hear from the Leader of the Government in the Senate all the reasons we're not in a position to debate a government bill.</p> <p>The reality is: over 1,154 days ago this was a promise, a promise by the Prime Minister. It was a promise by a Prime Minister under pressure because of the scandals, the failings and the lack of integrity in his government and the lack of trust and public trust in his government. He had to politically manage a situation at the time, so he promised an anti-corruption commission, he promised he would bring in legislation and then the government spent three years ensuring that they don't deliver on that promise. This has been a conscious decision by the government, because a government without integrity doesn't want an integrity commission. That is a fundamental problem for a government without integrity, for a government with ministerial scandal after ministerial scandal, where, after you do a bit of time on the backbench, on the bleachers, you get forgiven and brought back in. All of the sins that were committed and the standards of ministerial accountability that used to exist in every other government of both political colours, which have been kicked to the curb, have been rewritten under this government. You can be rehabilitated. Everyone's guaranteed a spot in the cabinet room, regardless of what offence they commit. That's the standard this government has set. So why on Earth would they want to bring in an integrity commission, when they fundamentally have a massive problem with integrity? They don't want scrutiny.</p> <p>And when they did work out their draft bill, it was a model that had no teeth, that set a lower standard for ministers and politicians—what a surprise!—and was universally rejected by every organisation and every expert who understands anything about anticorruption commissions. That was a big achievement! And I think it was a conscious decision by the government. They wanted to ensure that they had a work plan for the past 1,154 days that ultimately didn't deliver an anticorruption commission in this country, and they have systematically and comprehensively gone about their business making sure that never happens—and they've achieved it. I think in every sitting week for the past year or so, when someone in this place has brought forward a motion and had the numbers on a bill that had passed in this place for debate on another bill, the government has opposed it and then tried to point the finger at everybody else, who were actually arguing for a stronger anticorruption commission.</p> <p>Let's make no mistake about why this government's in this position. We have had scandal after scandal, with ministers like Minister Taylor—remember the forged documents? Remember that old chestnut? Remember 'grassgate'? That was also in his portfolio. And we had 'watergate'. We've seen all these rorts and the funds that have been established, where the government doesn't even pretend that they're trying to do the right thing—billions of dollars hidden in the budget to splash out on seats they either need to hold or want to win. We know that in the last midyear update $16 billion of our money was hidden in the budget for more election gift-giving to certain seats. We've got a Treasurer in this country who appropriated money for all of us through the budget and then went and awarded himself, his own seat, four car parks; I don't think any of them have been built. That is the standard, by which the Treasurer, the Prime Minister—senior ministers—conduct themselves, without integrity, doing everything they can to resist the bringing on of debate for an anticorruption commission. The Senate should stand up and support the suspension of standing orders and the motion Senator Patrick has brought in today.</p> ~~<p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>~~ The same number of senators voted for and against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2022-02-09.5.1) introduced by South Australian Senator [Rex Patrick](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/sa/rex_patrick) (Independent), which means it failed. ### Motion text *> That so much of** the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020.* [Standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/) are the usual procedural rules of parliament.

~~Rex Patrick~~
~~I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020, as circulated.~~
~~Leave not granted.~~
~~Pursuant to contingent notice of motion standing in my name, I move:~~
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020.
I will quickly address a concern that Senator Ruston will no doubt raise in her response to my short contribution here. She will say this is a stunt, brought on to waste government business time, but it's not.
One of the roles of the Senate is to make sure that we oversee the government, to make sure that the government does its work properly and to make sure that the government meets the commitments it has made to the Australian public. I draw the Senate's attention back to 13 December 2018, when the Prime Minister promised the Australian public that, were he to be given the opportunity to govern again, he would introduce a federal integrity commission bill. I don't know whether that was a 'core' promise; I don't know whether it was a promise. I don't know whether it was a commitment or an undertaking. I don't know which one of those it was or how the Prime Minister may consider each of those sorts of commitments. But I know that the Australian public would expect that, prima facie, if the Prime Minister says that then the Prime Minister will do that. But he hasn't. Either he was lying to the public or he has simply misled them. It's not like we're at the start of the 46th Parliament; we're at the end. There was a commitment by the Prime Minister to deal with a federal integrity commission, and it has not been met. That's why this is urgent and that's why this must be dealt with today, otherwise we'll have run out of time.
We don't have a bill that the government has brought to the chamber, so there's a bill that I've tabled which has been worked up by eminent experts in this area, former judicial officers included—and thanks to the member for Indi, Helen Haines—and we need to deal with it. We need to deal with this urgently. We have a situation where a government went into the last election, knowing full well that there's no federal integrity commission, engaging in car park rorting. I say that with the backing of the Auditor-General. We find that in the Treasurer's own seat four car parks were allocated. One of those car parks came in at a cost of $220,000 per car park.
Let me explain how this principle works. We are supposed to take taxpayers' money and spend it on the basis of need and on the basis of merit. That's what we're supposed to do. Yet, against the rules, against the objectives of the grant program, the Treasurer announced grants to his own electorate. If you are a public official and you subvert process and give money for the purposes of personal benefit—that being getting re-elected—that is corruption, and we have to be able to deal with that. We've seen sports rorts, where people or communities were given a grant not on the basis of merit but on the basis of a colour coded spreadsheet. That is wrong. We've seen water purchases that well exceed market values. We find that, in one instance, the department seemed not able to understand a valuation properly.
We've got blind trust, where ministers are getting paid a million dollars from unknown contributors and the government is not standing tall and saying, 'That's wrong.' There are so many issues that we need to have addressed, in relation to corruption, so that people can regain confidence in this place and in the other place. That's why we need to urgently deal with this bill. I ask that senators support my motion to suspend.
~~Simon Birmingham~~
The government does not support Senator Patrick's motion to suspend. The government does not support it—on the basis that we have a well-developed draft legislation established, published, in relation to the Commonwealth Integrity Commission.
There are many misconceptions peddled by some in relation to these debates and they're peddled in the context of, seemingly, wanting to create an impression that there is no anticorruption framework in Australia, which is patently untrue. We have existing frameworks that tackle corruption, clearly, already. Under the frameworks, multiple agencies across the Commonwealth government have responsibilities for preventing, detecting and responding to corruption.
These agencies, such as the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, bring specialist skills to address corruption across law enforcement agencies. The Australian Federal Police have the power, and work across partner agencies right across the Commonwealth, to leverage their expertise and capabilities, information and data collection capabilities, to respond to serious and complex corruption offences, including any allegations of fraud or bribery or the like, under existing corruption laws. The Commonwealth Ombudsman considers and investigates complaints where people believe they've been treated unfairly by an Australian government department. Even in relation to matters such as our own expenses, we have the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority that advises and reports on expenses of parliamentarians and their staff. This is set within laws, clearly enabled and established, that deal with corrupt conduct and all of the other elements of scrutiny applied within this parliament and a free media across our democracy. But we have seen benefit in acknowledging that having greater consolidation, greater coordination, across those different entities and efforts for handling corruption matters would be a positive.
That's why we've gone through an extensive process in relation to developing the legislation around the Commonwealth Integrity Commission. The integrity commission that we propose, backed by several hundred pages of legislation, detailed modelling, will investigate the most serious forms of criminal corruption that threaten good public administration; however, it won't duplicate the roles of existing bodies that already investigate corruption.
The arrangement we're proposing reflects the different nature of the corruption risks that exist across law enforcement bodies as opposed to those that exist in the public sector. When we talk about the public sector, we mean of course across the public sector from office holders at ministerial level right through the Public Service and public sector. Where the public sector division of our proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission found evidence of a criminal offence, it would refer a matter, rightly, to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, ensuring that the courts remain the relevant arbiter of whether someone is innocent or guilty of a corrupt offence.
We have put in place funding arrangements for the Commonwealth Integrity Commission: the 2019-20 budget committed more than $106 million of support for that in addition to more than $40 million for the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. The substantial investment that we've made is in stark contrast to the very low levels of budgeting and support that had been provided under previous governments for anti-corruption and related activities and enforcement.
We've already implemented phase one of our Commonwealth Integrity Commission by expanding the jurisdiction of the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity to cover additional agencies: the ATO, ASIC, APRA and the ACCC. The work is there; the legislation has been developed. What we're very clear about is that we're not interested in establishing Star Chamber type processes. We're not interested in establishing processes that are simply there as political playthings. So, the invitation stands to the crossbench, the Greens, the Labor Party: make clear your support for the model the government has developed for an integrity commission. That will clearly bring together the elements of being able to further strengthen and uphold Australia's anti-corruption framework and we will see that legislation passed. We're not interested in entertaining a model that simply creates opportunities for more political grandstanding that becomes a kangaroo court or a show trial model. This has got to be done in the proper way that our government has proposed.
~~Katy Gallagher~~
Labor will be supporting the suspension of standing orders this morning, and we certainly support the motion being moved by Senator Patrick, should the suspension get up. We have been calling for an anti-corruption commission for some time. The government promised a national anti-corruption commission 1,154 days ago. Then today we hear from the Leader of the Government in the Senate all the reasons we're not in a position to debate a government bill.
The reality is: over 1,154 days ago this was a promise, a promise by the Prime Minister. It was a promise by a Prime Minister under pressure because of the scandals, the failings and the lack of integrity in his government and the lack of trust and public trust in his government. He had to politically manage a situation at the time, so he promised an anti-corruption commission, he promised he would bring in legislation and then the government spent three years ensuring that they don't deliver on that promise. This has been a conscious decision by the government, because a government without integrity doesn't want an integrity commission. That is a fundamental problem for a government without integrity, for a government with ministerial scandal after ministerial scandal, where, after you do a bit of time on the backbench, on the bleachers, you get forgiven and brought back in. All of the sins that were committed and the standards of ministerial accountability that used to exist in every other government of both political colours, which have been kicked to the curb, have been rewritten under this government. You can be rehabilitated. Everyone's guaranteed a spot in the cabinet room, regardless of what offence they commit. That's the standard this government has set. So why on Earth would they want to bring in an integrity commission, when they fundamentally have a massive problem with integrity? They don't want scrutiny.
And when they did work out their draft bill, it was a model that had no teeth, that set a lower standard for ministers and politicians—what a surprise!—and was universally rejected by every organisation and every expert who understands anything about anticorruption commissions. That was a big achievement! And I think it was a conscious decision by the government. They wanted to ensure that they had a work plan for the past 1,154 days that ultimately didn't deliver an anticorruption commission in this country, and they have systematically and comprehensively gone about their business making sure that never happens—and they've achieved it. I think in every sitting week for the past year or so, when someone in this place has brought forward a motion and had the numbers on a bill that had passed in this place for debate on another bill, the government has opposed it and then tried to point the finger at everybody else, who were actually arguing for a stronger anticorruption commission.
Let's make no mistake about why this government's in this position. We have had scandal after scandal, with ministers like Minister Taylor—remember the forged documents? Remember that old chestnut? Remember 'grassgate'? That was also in his portfolio. And we had 'watergate'. We've seen all these rorts and the funds that have been established, where the government doesn't even pretend that they're trying to do the right thing—billions of dollars hidden in the budget to splash out on seats they either need to hold or want to win. We know that in the last midyear update $16 billion of our money was hidden in the budget for more election gift-giving to certain seats. We've got a Treasurer in this country who appropriated money for all of us through the budget and then went and awarded himself, his own seat, four car parks; I don't think any of them have been built. That is the standard, by which the Treasurer, the Prime Minister—senior ministers—conduct themselves, without integrity, doing everything they can to resist the bringing on of debate for an anticorruption commission. The Senate should stand up and support the suspension of standing orders and the motion Senator Patrick has brought in today.
~~Long debate text truncated.~~
The same number of senators voted for and against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2022-02-09.5.1) introduced by South Australian Senator [Rex Patrick](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/sa/rex_patrick) (Independent), which means it failed.
### Motion text
> *That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to the consideration of the Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020.*
[Standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/) are the usual procedural rules of parliament.