MARK DREYFUS
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
PORTER SITTING ON INTEGRITY COMMISSION BILL SINCE DECEMBER
The Attorney-General’s own Department has today revealed Mr Porter has been sitting on draft legislation for an integrity commission since December.
Mr Porter has repeatedly blamed the COVID crisis for his refusal to make public the draft bill.
But evidence today in Senate Estimates has revealed Mr Porter was handed the draft months before the COVID crisis.
CHRIS MORAITIS: (Attorney-General’s Department Secretary) An exposure draft has been with the Attorney. I would assume pre-COVID?
SARAH CHIDGEY: (Attorney-General’s Department Deputy Secretary) Yes, that's right. And we just checked out records and I think was December 2019.
SENATOR MURRAY WATT: Wow. So he's been sitting on it since last year.
Today’s evidence confirms the Morrison Government has no interest in integrity or fighting corruption and is using the COVID-crisis as an excuse.
In December 2018 Mr Porter and Mr Morrison claimed to have been working on “a robust, resourced, real system that will protect the integrity of Commonwealth and public administration” since January 2018.
Today, almost three years later, nothing has happened, despite departmental officials providing them with a draft bill ahead of their own deadline to release the legislation by the end of 2019.
That commitment was always a sham. The integrity commission promised by Mr Morrison and Mr Porter was so weak, ineffective and opaque it was unable to instigate independent inquiries, to hold public hearings, or even investigate any of the multiple past scandals of the Morrison Government.
Today’s evidence follows Mr Porter’s recent admission that tackling corruption is a low priority for the Morrison Government.
The ever-growing list of scandals surrounding the Morrison Government shows why Australia needs a powerful and independent Audit Office, and a powerful and independent National Integrity Commission – and why Mr Morrison and his colleagues will do everything in their power to crush both of them.
WEDNESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2020
