MARK DREYFUS MP

Almost 1,000 days have passed since the Prime Minister and the former Attorney-General stood before the Australian people and finally, grudgingly, promised them a National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The ever-growing list of scandals surrounding the Morrison government shows why Australia needs a powerful and independent anti-corruption commission and why the Prime Minister and his colleagues continue to do everything they can to stop one from being established.

Time after time after time, the Morrison government put their interests and those of their mates above the interests of Australians. Instead of doing everything in their power to get Australians out of lockdown, the Prime Minister and his Treasurer are using the national parliament to sneak through legislation to help their mates. They are not on the side of Australians.

If the government is serious about providing justice for First Nations people, if the Prime Minister is genuine in what he claims is his desire to work respectfully with Indigenous Australians to close the gap in justice outcomes, he should start by honouring rather than trashing the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

This is a government that lives in terror of what a powerful, independent, and transparent anti-corruption commission would reveal to the Australian people.

The Morrison Government had two jobs and it has failed at them both.

It had a job of getting quarantine right. It is a Constitutional responsibility of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth has ducked that responsibility from the get go in this pandemic.

All members of the Committee support the re-listing of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation as a terrorist organisation because of its record of directly and indirectly engaging in and supporting terrorist acts.

However, as the Committee did in June 2018, we are again asking why the Government has decided to confine the re-listing of Hizballah only to its External Security Organisation.

The willingness of this Government to let our history rot rather than implement the Tune Review’s recommendations to preserve it shows how far his party has strayed from the traditions on which the party was founded. 

I call on the Government to stop trashing that legacy and do the work needed to preserve our nation’s history.

Once again we are seeing the consequences of the Morrison Government’s failures on quarantine and the COVID vaccination rollout.

Labor members of the Committee join with our colleagues on the Committee in welcoming the Government’s decision to list the Sonnenkrieg Division.

This marks the first time that a right-wing extremist organisation has been listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia.