Jettison anti-graft body, says Barnaby Joyce

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has called on Attorney-General Christian Porter to junk the government’s proposed anti-corruption body.

‘I don’t support this, not ­because I don’t think its powers are not exceptional enough, I think that the whole process is too exceptional’: Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Toby Zerna

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has called on Attorney-General Christian Porter to junk the government’s proposed anti-corruption body, saying there are already enough mechanisms to catch out corrupt politicians and senior public servants.

The former deputy prime minister rejected claims the proposed commonwealth integrity commission was a “toothless tiger” and instead labelled the ­reform “too exceptional”.

“I don’t support this, not ­because I don’t think its powers are not exceptional enough, I think that the whole process is too exceptional,” he said.

“People hear about problems at a federal level because we have the mechanisms to discover them at a federal level. They are called Senate inquiries, they are called referrals from federal police, it is called parliament ­itself, it is called royal commissions. The reason you hear about the Cartier watches, and the reason you hear about the people who put their tax fees on the government cheque, is because we do have these checks and balances in place.

“It is when you don’t hear about them that you have got to scratch your head — not when you do.”

Under the draft legislation unveiled on Monday, the CIC would investigate referrals of corruption, conduct private hearings and submit its findings to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP would then recommend whether police should lay criminal charges.

Hearings for politicians and most public sector workers would be held in private.

Centre of Public Integrity ­director Geoffrey Watson SC criticised the proposed reform as a “total disappointment”, saying the body would lack the necessary powers.

Mr Watson, a former prosecuting barrister at hearings in the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, said the powers of the body would be so weak it would not be able to investigate issues such as the Morrison government’s “sports rorts” scandal and the Leppington Triangle property sale.

He said the Auditor-General would not be able to refer either cases to CIC because there has not been evidence of criminal wrongdoing — a threshold Mr Watson said was too high.

“That is not evidence of a crime. That is evidence of misdoing in respect of finances,” he told the ABC. “None of them would get off the ground because the body needs to suspect that a serious crime has been committed before an investigation can start. Now I do not know how you can hold that suspicion if you haven’t got the evidence. I do not know how you can get that evidence without commencing the investigation.”

He criticised the lack of powers for the CIC to initiate investigations or take referrals from the public. Referrals can be made by ministers and the head of a government departments, and politicians can self-refer. “It is not a model anywhere else in Australia or, as far as I can tell, in the world,” he said.