Hansard debates

Tim READ (Brunswick) (17:48): I always say it is a pleasure to make a contribution to bills that seek to improve political integrity in this place, so rarely am I afforded the opportunity to do so. Because it is fair to say that of the many achievements under a decade of Victorian Labor, which I readily acknowledge, a genuine commitment to strengthening political integrity is unfortunately not yet among them, either as an operating principle of the government or as a legislative priority. Indeed the very reason that we are here today debating this bill to establish a parliamentary integrity commission is because the former Premier made a captain’s call to go against the advice of his former Special Minister of State and reject the creation of this office back in 2019, and then, along with the Liberal Party, voted down Greens’ amendments to create this office. But it gets worse, because instead of creating a parliamentary commissioner, the former Premier reinstated to the front bench an MP he described as his good friend, despite said MP previously being stood down for workplace bullying and inappropriate physical contact with a female staffer. So we did not get an integrity commissioner in 2019, but we did reappoint a Labor minister who had previously repeatedly engaged in the kinds of egregious workplace behaviour that this bill defines as ‘serious parliamentary misconduct’.

Unsurprisingly, this captain’s call did not work out so well – not politically for the Labor Party and not for local government and councillors, who continue to suffer from Mr Somyurek’s reforms as a minister, but most of all not for the reputation of the entire Victorian Parliament and the public’s perception of and trust in Victorian politicians. Consider the fact that were it not for some good journalism in the media, it is likely that Mr Somyurek would still be a Victorian Labor minister and he would still be meddling with the Local Government Act 2020, would still be misusing parliamentary resources and likely would still be bullying his staff and parliamentary colleagues with his trademark bigotry and misogyny. Such is the pernicious power of the Labor Party’s factionalism and branch stacking that even the most autocratic Premier in a generation felt obliged to not just tolerate such behaviour but actively reward it with a seat in his cabinet.

There is no better example of why we need a strong, independent anti-corruption commission, or Ombudsman, than the events uncovered in Operation Watts. But also we need strong parliamentary investigatory committees, including the privileges committees, which importantly are free from interference by the government and executive of the day. It shows why Victorian politics have needed for a long time the parliamentary integrity and behaviour commission that is proposed in this bill. We cannot know whether or not the behaviour uncovered during that IBAC investigation would have been prevented had the government not blocked the creation of this office in 2019, but it certainly would have helped. We also now know that the release of the Operation Watts report did not put an end to misconduct but merely marked an outrageous example of ongoing inappropriate behaviour, or grey-level corruption, from Labor government MPs since its release. Incredibly, we saw with IBAC’s Operation Clara how the venality of some Labor factional figureheads persists even after they have left the Victorian Parliament.

Of course no party or government or Parliament is immune from a toxic culture and bad workplace behaviour, even if Victoria appears to have become a showcase for these practices. So I am glad that this bill also incorporates some of the lessons from other jurisdictions, most notably the findings of the Jenkins report from the Australian Human Rights Commission. I also want to recognise that the government has engaged in the type of genuine consultation across the Parliament before introducing this bill that, in my opinion, does not happen nearly enough. I particularly want to recognise Mike Williams from the Premier’s office in this regard. While I have felt obliged to call out the recent poor culture and behaviour of some Labor MPs, because this is what ultimately led to this bill being introduced, it is important I also recognise the many current Labor MPs, ministers and staff members of integrity who, along with everyone in Victorian politics, have been unfortunately sullied by what I truly hope is the behaviour and attitude of a few.

Obviously the Victorian Greens, who have been championing the reforms in this bill for half a decade, welcome the government finally introducing this bill, which we will be supporting. But under standing orders, I wish to advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated.

Amendments circulated under standing orders.

Tim READ: I will just speak briefly to these amendments circulated today and why I believe they should be supported. Clause 30 of the bill provides that the commission may impose sanctions on the Premier, a member, a parliamentary secretary or a minister where it has made a finding of parliamentary misconduct that is not serious parliamentary misconduct. We are talking here about relatively less serious cases where the commission can directly impose a sanction on a member, such as a requirement they issue an apology. But I do believe there is a small oversight in the current bill where it does not provide for circumstances when a member who receives a direct sanction under clause 30 refuses to comply with the sanction imposed on them by the commission. My amendments propose to allow the commission to further investigate and report should a member fail to comply with any sanctions previously imposed on them by the commission under clause 30. The amendment further clarifies that such noncompliance can constitute serious parliamentary misconduct, effectively upgrading an initial finding of non-serious parliamentary misconduct against a member.

I also wish to flag today that as this bill moves to the other place, the Greens will have further amendments to improve the integrity and operation of parliamentary committees, which I will also summarise. Operation Watts contains significant discussion on the current problems and ineffectiveness of the privileges committees in investigating MP misconduct and recommending sanctions. Recommendation 3a of the Watts report is unambiguous that:

the privileges committees of each House be reformed to dilute the capacity of the majority in each House to determine the privileges committees’ priorities and decision making

Likewise, the government were clear and unequivocal that they would support all the recommendations of Operation Watts, including specifically bringing legislation to reform the privileges committees before the Parliament. Given this commitment, it is rather surprising the government has had an apparent change of heart on reforming the composition of the privileges committees, which does not appear in this bill. So the Greens will introduce amendments in the other place to acquit recommendation 3 of Operation Watts by amending the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003 to provide that not more than half the members of the respective privileges committee in each house may be members of a political party forming the government and that the chairperson of a privileges committee must not be a member of a political party forming the government.

But we will go further by introducing these same amendments so that they will apply to all of Parliament’s investigatory committees to ensure their independence from the government of the day. This is particularly important for the Integrity and Oversight Committee, which is proposed to have significant additional oversight functions of the Parliamentary Workplace Standards and Integrity Commission in this bill, including a veto power over the minister’s proposed appointment of a commissioner. It simply defies logic that the bill requires that the proposed new ethics committee must be composed in a way to be independent of the government of the day but leaves the Integrity and Oversight Committee, which has far greater responsibility in monitoring and overseeing the overall integrity framework proposed in the bill, without this requirement. For the same reason the oversight functions and veto powers of all joint investigatory committees must be sufficiently independent from the government they scrutinise, and I note the comments earlier today from the member for Malvern along these lines.

I confess these amendments also represent something of a test for this Labor government under the leadership of a new Premier purportedly determined to turn over a new leaf from some of the unacceptable behaviours of the past. If this new Allan Labor state government is now genuine about improving parliamentary standards and the integrity of Parliament, about upholding that almost forgotten democratic notion of good government, meaning that it holds itself transparent and accountable to the people’s representatives in this Parliament, then it will support the Greens amendments and reform parliamentary investigatory committees. If it does not, we can safely assume that once again it is trying to get away with implementing the minimum amount of integrity reform possible only because one of its ministers was found out, because a good government that is genuine about improving political integrity does not wait for the corruption scandal, the resultant political fallout and the IBAC recommendations before it belatedly acts and because a good integrity system is not designed retrospectively by a government playing whack-a-mole in response to its own scandals, especially when there is so much in Victoria still to improve on with integrity.

The former Premier possibly thought he had dodged a bullet when he shut down the push to establish a parliamentary integrity and behaviour commission in 2019. He probably thought that by shielding his government and ministers from greater scrutiny and keeping this Parliament’s behavioural standards low he was better able to avoid pesky questions of integrity and get stuff done. But what actually occurred instead was that the litany of poor behaviour of Labor MPs and ministers simply grew until it was too big to ignore. The end result was not good for the Parliament, for the people who work in Parliament and for our reputation as parliamentarians working for the public good, and if you want to analyse it in blunt political terms, the end result also became one of the major political liabilities for the Andrews Labor government and the Victorian Labor Party. By the same token, the government may think that blocking Greens amendments which seek to increase accountability and transparency represents a win for them, but I would suggest that in the long term all of us, especially the government, ultimately lose from holding ourselves to lower political standards.

I can say, however, that I have been encouraged by my conversations across the Parliament on ways in which we can improve this bill. I genuinely hope that this results in a multipartisan commitment to strengthening this integrity legislation even further. I urge all of us in this place not to waste this opportunity for genuine reform. Let us all take the worst Victorian political behaviour exposed by Operation Watts and make it the catalyst for improving the standards, integrity and functions of our Parliament and parliamentarians. The Greens commend the bill, and our amendments to enhance it, to the house.