|
representatives vote 2022-11-24#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2022-11-25 13:30:42
|
Title
Bills — National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill 2022; Consideration in Detail- National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill 2022 - Consideration in Detail - Pork barrelling and corrupt conduct definition
Description
<p class="speaker">Helen Haines</p><p>by leave—I move amendments (1) to (4) as circulated in my name together:</p><p class="italic">(1) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 20), after paragraph (1)(d), insert:</p><p class="italic">(da) any conduct of a public official that involves the allocation of public funds or other resources to targeted electors for partisan political purposes;</p><p class="italic">(2) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 23), after subclause (1), insert:</p><p class="italic">(1A) <i>Corrupt conduct</i> is also any conduct of any person (whether or not a public official) that impairs, or that could impair, public confidence in public administration and which could involve any of the following matters:</p><p class="italic">(a) collusive tendering;</p><p class="italic">(b) fraud in relation to applications for licences, permits or other authorities under legislation designed to protect health and safety or the environment or designed to facilitate the management and commercial exploitation of resources;</p><p class="italic">(c) dishonestly obtaining or assisting in obtaining, or dishonestly benefiting from, the payment or application of public funds for private advantage or the disposition of public assets for private advantage;</p><p class="italic">(d) defrauding the public revenue;</p><p class="italic">(e) fraudulently obtaining or retaining employment or appointment as a public official.</p><p class="italic">(3) Clause 8, page 14 (line 24), omit "does not", substitute "and subsection (1A) do not".</p><p class="italic">(4) Clause 8, page 15 (line 15), after "paragraph (1)(a)", insert "or subsection (1A)".</p><p>These amendments are really important. They put beyond doubt that pork-barrelling falls within the definition of 'corrupt conduct' when it meets the threshold of being serious or systemic. Pork-barrelling under this amendment will be defined as any conduct 'that involves the allocation of public funds and resources to targeted electors for partisan political purposes'.</p><p>Let's call pork-barrelling out for what it is. It is buying votes with taxpayer money. It doesn't pass the pub test. My constituents are stumped as to why it still goes on. The public are sick and tired of it, because they know that every time a marginal electorate gets pork-barrelled important infrastructure in other electorates misses out. They are absolutely sick of it. In the last parliament, I heard the now Attorney-General standing in this place constantly—constantly!—calling out the then government on this. I heard the now Prime Minister do the same thing—constantly calling out pork-barrelling and constantly calling for an anticorruption commission that would fundamentally stop pork-barrelling.</p><p>Now that we have this government's National Anti-Corruption Commission legislation, I want to make sure that there is not one element of doubt that the commissioner can, when they determine that this is serious or systemic, go ahead and undertake an investigation into this egregious practice that has been going on across this nation for way too long. There is significant and growing concern about the alleged misuse of billions of dollars of public grant funds, and there should be absolutely no ambiguity regarding the NACC's ability to investigate what is a really, really disgraceful practice.</p><p>I want to be clear. This amendment does not force the commissioner to investigate all instances of pork-barrelling—though, I might say, it would be jolly good if there was some way that we could do that! The amendment doesn't do that at all. This amendment retains the discretion of the commissioner as to whether or not to commence an investigation, as it should be. These amendments also ensure that the conduct of any person—and, notably, third persons—that could impair public confidence in public administration can be investigated by the NACC, when it meets the threshold of being serious and systemic. These amendments on third-party involvement which impairs public confidence are really important. This is a tried and true provision in every single anticorruption body in Australia, apart from Western Australia and Tasmania, and it belongs in this body, too.</p><p>These are two really important amendments. Members of this place, you haven't got much time left now to make this bill the very, very best it can be. If, like me, you get tired of constituents coming to you when something good does happen in your electorate—the member for Bass talked to me about this yesterday, and it's so true. Members of this place work really hard with government to advocate for excellent policies and excellent infrastructure to come into their electorate. When that happens, to feel like you're then part of this great big bad situation of pork-barrelling actually undermines the good work that happens here, and it doesn't do anything about the bad stuff.</p><p>I say to you: if you want to regain the trust of the nation, if you want to walk out in your community and feel that, every time you work hard for them to get the infrastructure they need, it's going to be done in the right way, under clear guidelines and with real integrity, then you should be voting for this amendment, so we make this absolutely crystal clear. Members, think carefully about this one, and think carefully also about third parties and the erosion of public confidence in public officials. We can fix this now. I think the Attorney-General knows what I'm talking about. This is a real opportunity to get this bill as tight as we possibly can, to say to the public, 'We're here for you, right down to the wire, to make sure that we have an anticorruption commission that is absolutely fit for purpose and will restore your trust in us.'</p> <p class="speaker">Bob Katter</p><p>In speaking to this bill, I personally of course have been on the receiving end. In one election, quite literally every newspaper that came out in the Kennedy electorate had a picture of Senator Boswell handing out cheques during the election campaign. John Anderson stood down soon after the inquiry into the fact that most of the development moneys had been spent in the two electorates targeted by the National Party, which were the electorate of New England and the electorate of Kennedy. Mr Beazley was then the Leader of the Opposition, and he led the attack, and I suppose the member for New England and I enjoyed the game. But it was the third case, and no-one blew the whistle on him, and he was told to fix up the account. I told him bluntly that he either fixed up the account or there would be another investigation and he'd be leaving this place.</p><p>It gives me no joy to say—because I spent most of my life in the National Party—that, in that last case, it was a National Party leader; in the case before that, it was the National Party leader; and, in the case before that, it was the National Party leader. The last case did not politically involve Kennedy, but it concerned dairying, and I had probably the biggest dairying area in Australia. The dairy RAP money had gone to the minister's electorate and not to anyone else. So that was not politically motivated, just in his own personal interest. He thought it would be nice if he pork-barrelled for himself. But it is a very sorry record.</p><p>Now, I live in the real world. I'm a realist. If you're working with people, and they're your friends, then you are more inclined to do things for them because you just know what they're doing. You're working with them. They're people that you trust. In Queensland the relationship between the Thiess brothers and Bjelke-Petersen enabled that state to create the tourism industry, to create the coal industry and also to create the minerals-processing industry, which came out of my own electorate. They were all created out of that extremely tight relationship. We don't want pork-barrelling to cover things that are good for the nation, where you're going to spit on them just because they happen to be friends or they happen to be political supporters.</p><p>I want to make it perfectly clear that, whilst every one of us on the crossbench—and I'm not speaking for the crossbench, of course—want to go where Helen Haines is taking us in this debate and in this initiative, we must also understand that it can't punish people just because they happen to be friends and supporters of the Labor Party or the Liberal Party. I was at the CFMEU dinner last night. If there's a big construction job on and there's site coverage by the CFMEU, we're not going to allege—I hope that no-one in this place would allege—that therefore it's wrong because there's an association between the CFMEU and the ALP, which, of course, there is. They support them very substantially financially.</p><p>I just want to make the point that, whilst we're trying to attack an evil, an endemic evil in our system—and I've pointed out where it has occurred again and again and again. There was Ros Kelly, going back before the National Party's transgressions. It was unbelievable what she did there. But a similar thing had been done by one of the National Party leaders, only much worse, actually. So it's been going on and on and on, and it will continue to go on. We just hope this legislation will stop it. But we don't want the legislation to become a killing ground for things that are good for the government of Australia.</p> <p class="speaker">Luke Howarth</p><p>In relation to these amendments, I find the member for Indi's amendments, quite frankly, offensive. I spoke about this last night in my own speech. I will leave it on the record there, but I certainly won't be supporting the amendments.</p> <p class="speaker">Andrew Wilkie</p><p>I support the member for Indi's amendments, and I applaud the member for Indi for being such a principled member of this parliament and being prepared to tackle issues like this. I echo the member for Indi when she makes the distinction between, on the one hand, a member for parliament fighting for their electorate and the response of the government to those requests—that is, us fighting for our electorates and being successful—and, on the other hand, governments acting in corrupt ways with systemic pork-barrelling for political gains.</p><p>I think it is undeniable that the previous government's sports rorts program was unconscionable and unethical. It should be illegal, and it meets every reasonable definition of corruption. So too does what happened before last year's Tasmanian state election, when the Tasmanian government rolled out $15 million of grants, including to a number of community groups linked to state politicians and their families—for example, a grant of $150,000 to a rowing club of which a family member of a candidate was a member. That is corruption.</p><p>I echo the member for Indi's comments, and I also pick up on her point about her conversation with the member for Bass yesterday. I was a part of that conversation. The member for Bass does a really good job representing her community and fighting for her community, and it is quite offensive to the northern Tasmanian members personally when we talk about their electorates being pork-barrelled. I do talk about their electorates being pork-barrelled, and I criticise governments and political parties for pork-barrelling in those areas, but we've got to be careful to keep that as a completely separate matter to good members of parliament fighting for their groups and doing everything they possibly can to get federal funding for their community groups, for infrastructure et cetera.</p> <p class="speaker">Zoe Daniel</p><p>I rise in support of the member for Indi's amendments. I feel that by not including pork-barrelling in this bill we're operating at cross-purposes with our electorates. Certainly, during the election campaign, constituents in Goldstein primarily spoke to me about pork-barrelling. It so happens that Goldstein was the recipient of no fewer than six car parks—or should I call them car porks?—to the tune of roughly $100 million. Even though those commuter car parks were supposed assets for the electorate, there was deep recognition within the community of Goldstein that these were blatant examples of pork-barrelling by the former government. Those car parks have now been axed by the current government in the most recent budget, but it echoes for me, having now been elected, how deeply this issue ran during the election campaign. Therefore, I feel that to exclude this as an explicit element of the bill is a mistake, and from that perspective I endorse the remarks of my colleagues.</p><p>I would also add that arguably some would say, 'Well, there's a difference between pork-barrelling and corruption,' but I don't think our constituents see it that way. Particularly in an environment of cost-of-living pressure—where people are struggling to pay for fuel for their cars, to pay their electricity bills and to pay their rent or mortgages—people find it deeply troubling and offensive that business cases are not stacked up for the way that taxpayers' money is spent. There should be transparent processes around the allocation of taxpayers' funds. So with that in mind I strongly support the member's amendment and I think my community would as well.</p> <p class="speaker">Monique Ryan</p><p>I just want to speak briefly to echo the remarks made by my crossbench colleagues. One-third of Australians voted in May 2022 in favour of increased transparency and integrity in government. And, yes, we had carpark rorts, we had sports rorts, we had the Leppington Triangle and we had water rorts. It is only with the passage of time that we will understand the extent of the lack of integrity of the last government. These things are coming to light by the day. We have been like frogs being boiled. We have become inert to the extent to which integrity has been lost and that has been reflected in the fact that the Australian public has lost faith in the process. If we don't include pork-barrelling then something will remain rotten in the state of Victoria, in the state of Tasmania, in New South Wales. We have to uncover this corruption wherever it is. Without doing that we won't regain the trust of the Australian public, and I think it is really important we do everything in our power to do that.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2022-11-24.33.4) to *disagree* with [amendments (1) to (4)](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2022-11-24.26.1) introduced by Indi MP [Helen Haines](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/indi/helen_haines) (Independent), which means they failed.
- #### Rebellion
- Bass MP [Bridget Archer](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/bass/bridget_archer) (Liberal) [crossed the floor](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/help/faq#rebel) to vote "No" against the rest of the Liberal party, who voted "Yes".
- ### What did the amendment do?
- Dr Haines [explained that](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2022-11-24.26.1):
- > *These amendments are really important. They put beyond doubt that pork-barrelling falls within the definition of 'corrupt conduct' when it meets the threshold of being serious or systemic. Pork-barrelling under this amendment will be defined as any conduct 'that involves the allocation of public funds and resources to targeted electors for partisan political purposes'.*
- >
- > *[...]*
- >
- > *These amendments also ensure that the conduct of any person—and, notably, third persons—that could impair public confidence in public administration can be investigated by the NACC, when it meets the threshold of being serious and systemic.*
- Read more about the bill in its [bills digest](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/bd/bd2223a/23bd035).
- ### Amendment text
- > *(1) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 20), after paragraph (1)(d), insert:*
- >
- >> *(da) any conduct of a public official that involves the allocation of public funds or other resources to targeted electors for partisan political purposes;*
- >
- > *(2) Clause 8, page 14 (after line 23), after subclause (1), insert:*
- >
- >> *(1A) Corrupt conduct is also any conduct of any person (whether or not a public official) that impairs, or that could impair, public confidence in public administration and which could involve any of the following matters:*
- >>
- >>> *(a) collusive tendering;*
- >>>
- >>> *(b) fraud in relation to applications for licences, permits or other authorities under legislation designed to protect health and safety or the environment or designed to facilitate the management and commercial exploitation of resources;*
- >>>
- >>> *(c) dishonestly obtaining or assisting in obtaining, or dishonestly benefiting from, the payment or application of public funds for private advantage or the disposition of public assets for private advantage;*
- >>>
- >>> *(d) defrauding the public revenue;*
- >>>
- >>> *(e) fraudulently obtaining or retaining employment or appointment as a public official.*
- >
- > *(3) Clause 8, page 14 (line 24), omit "does not", substitute "and subsection (1A) do not".*
- >
- > *(4) Clause 8, page 15 (line 15), after "paragraph (1)(a)", insert "or subsection (1A)".*
-
-
|