By Katina Curtis
Three Liberal MPs have called for cross-party collaboration to work out a compromise proposal for an integrity commission, with Celia Hammond adding her voice to colleagues Bridget Archer and John Alexander.
On the final sitting day before Parliament rises for a six-week pre-budget break, retiring Sydney MP Mr Alexander said it was “time to stop bashing heads and put heads together” on a federal anti-corruption watchdog.
Liberal MPs Bridget Archer and John Alexander have spoken of the need for a federal integrity commission.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced in December 2018 he would create a Commonwealth integrity commission, noting work on it had been underway since January that year. The government released an exposure draft bill in November 2020 but is yet to formally put it to Parliament, despite taking it as a promise to the 2019 election.
The government’s model has been widely criticised by experts, lawyers, Labor and crossbenchers.
Mr Alexander, the member for Bennelong who is stepping down at the coming federal election, called for a multi-party group led by independent MP Helen Haines and involving the government and Labor to work out a compromise proposal.
Ms Hammond, the member for Curtin who was stuck in Western Australia during the parliamentary sitting, said there were many models of anti-corruption commission around the country that could be learned from.
“Everybody’s got a different idea of what should be in the model,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“It is something that we should be trying to reach agreement on. We should enact one, whether it’s this Parliament or the start of the next Parliament.”
Mr Alexander said the issue had been a political football for too long, with each side “happier to score political points than to get the job done”.
“A properly working parliament requires trust, honesty and integrity. It is clear that our standing in the public has taken a bashing because these key attributes are in question,” he said during debate in the House of Representatives on Thursday.
“We need a federal ICAC so we can take action.”
Afterwards, he said while he believed Australia’s leaders had a high level of honesty and integrity, “it’s become a sport to denigrate each other’s credibility”.
He invoked the spirit of cooperation between former opposing leaders Robert Menzies and Arthur Calwell, who used to meet regularly outside of Parliament to find common ground on issues in order to make progress.
“[Prime Minister Scott Morrison] will say we’ve put this incredible document together, it’s got hundreds of hundreds of pages and there hasn’t been a genuine response from the other side,” Mr Alexander said.
“My view is that there’s not enough goodwill and good faith between the parties to engage with each other honestly, set politics aside and actually work on getting something that will serve the Australian people better.”
Ms Archer, who represents the Tasmanian seat of Bass, agreed with Mr Alexander there must be a multi-partisan approach for any integrity commission to succeed.
“It will not create the institution that is necessary if there is a ‘my idea is better than your idea’ approach,” she told Parliament.
She later said: “I’ve continued to have those discussions over summer, and they had been met in good faith. But I don’t think that we are going to get [it] in this term of Parliament.
“I would just urge all parties to put the politics aside and come back here to the 47th Parliament in good faith and get this done.”
Late last year, Ms Archer crossed the floor to back a move by Dr Haines to bring on debate on her proposal for an integrity commission.
Dr Haines said on Thursday the government and Mr Morrison had taken her and voters for a ride, conducted “clearly fake consultation” on legislation that led to no changes to a draft bill and ran down the clock towards the election by insisting they would not introduce any bill that did not have the support of Labor.
“[Mr Morrison] has never applied that standard to any other legislation,” she told Parliament.
“He played the public for a patsy, but they are smarter than that. Make no mistake: this is a deliberate decision by the Prime Minister to avoid accountability.”
With just two sitting days of both chambers of Parliament left before the election, Dr Haines doesn’t expect the promise the government made to create an integrity commission to be kept.
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