Dreyfus attack on Coalition’s lack of ‘commitment’ to integrity

Labor legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus will urge Scott Morrison to fast track plans for a national corruption body.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus. Picture: AAP

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus on Wednesday will urge Scott Morrison to fast-track plans for a national corruption body and accuse the government of showing a “lack of commitment to integrity”.

In a speech to the National Press Club, Mr Dreyfus will lash the government for failing to introduce legislation for a national integrity commission, despite announcing support for the body eight months ago. His speech will attempt to distance federal Labor from the NSW party’s woes in the hearings at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

“More than 20 months after Labor’s announcement we would establish a national integrity commission, and more than eight months after the Liberal government announced the same commitment, we still don’t have so much as an exposure draft for legislation to establish such a body,” Mr Dreyfus will say.

“Legislation to establish such a body is not even on the government’s published legislative plan for the rest of this year. And this despite the fact at the time of the December press conference, the government claimed to have been working on legislation since January 2018. You have to ask just how serious this government is about a national integrity commission when 10 months after announcing the need for one and putting out a discussion paper, there is no proposal before parliament, and no sign it’s even on the government’s agenda for the rest of this year. We have a government obsessed with a bill about unions called ensuring integrity, that adamantly refuses to ensure its own integrity can be put under scrutiny.”

On Monday, a Greens-backed bill to establish a national corruption body passed the Senate with the support of Labor.

A vote to bring on the bill in the House of Representatives failed on Tuesday, opposed by the government which has proposed a body with a smaller scope than the one backed by the Greens.