Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Member conduct

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (17:31): If the fish rots from the head, then the tail and the whole lot of it has been absolutely rotted to the core by the Premier and this government; it is absolutely smashed when it comes to this government that cannot be trusted. We have seen from the weekend the real importance of integrity, the real importance of a government that you can trust. Well, this is a government that cannot be trusted, that has failed each and every time when we have had anti-corruption investigations, three of which have had the Premier at the front and centre of these inquiries. This is a government that is an absolute mess when it comes to trust and corruption and honesty and integrity, and it is certainly not fit when it comes to ensuring that Victorians’ futures are secure.

Five years ago—it just came up on my Facebook memories—I posted something about a graphic that sums up the week in Parliament in Victoria:

Daniel Andrews backs rorting MPs but fails the CFA …

with a photo of the former Deputy Speaker, Don Nardella, the then member for Melton, who was using his entitlements to fund a second home like it was his own money. I mean, seriously—over $100 000 just out of the taxpayers fund and into his pocket. That is what was being used, and of course we had the Speaker also embroiled in this some five years ago. Do you think a government would learn? Do you think they would learn?

We also had the Ombudsman look at the rorting that was taken on back in 2014, the rorting that was taken on by field organisers. Again this government—and it was termed the red shirts—would use staff in their electorate offices that should be picking up the phone, servicing constituents in need of help, but instead they were utilising them to run their operation into another term of government, ignoring the constituents that needed help the most. I am going to come back to that in a minute, because this was an offence that was repeated by ministers during a pandemic. A government that claimed they cared during a pandemic used ministers—instead of having them on the end of the phone trying to help people—to try to service their own want for re-election, ignoring those constituents. In this instance that the Ombudsman looked into from March to November 2014 we had five current ministers embroiled in this. It was then Gayle Tierney, $20 000; the member for Ivanhoe, $8000; the member for Mill Park, $5000, the member for Keysborough, $5000; Shaun Leane, $2300—a total of $387 000 of taxpayer money was used for their own purposes.

That is what this government is used to. Labor is used to taking other people’s money, taxpayers money, and using it for their own purposes. They cannot be trusted, they do not care, they really use the fund of the taxpayer like it is their own. And history repeats, because you would think back then that they would have learned from their mistakes, but the Ombudsman has done reports and IBAC have done reports into repeated behaviour.

I want to say at the outset: when a business goes into administration they have pretty much failed. What happens? You bring someone into that business to take over because you do not trust the directors anymore and it needs to be managed all the way through to either being wound up or sold off, and guess what? We have the Labor Party at the moment in administration. They are in administration because they cannot trust their own members and their own MPs in terms of running the show. We had that investigation where the federal ALP made an extraordinary intervention into Victorian branch stacking back in June 2020, when Labor’s national executive appointed Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin as administrators of the Victorian branch and suspended all state committees as the party continued to grapple with the damaging fallout of the Adem Somyurek branch-stacking scandal. The suspension of voting rights in the state branch until 2023 was expected to be amongst the measures implemented as the party grappled with the fallout. This is a government that is broke when it comes to integrity. This is a government that has failed Victorians. If they do not trust themselves, how can Victorians trust them?

When we saw the number of independents on election day one of their key platforms was integrity and trust. Here is a government and a Labor Party that do not trust themselves to even run the preselections to put those members into this Parliament to then go and represent constituents. I mean, seriously—when I was talking only a few weeks ago with some of my constituents and explaining that actually the ALP in Victoria are under administration because they do not trust themselves, and the members that have been preselected to run in November have had to be done by a captain’s call because the members do not trust themselves to be able to elect people, they could not believe it. They just could not believe it.

Well, the show goes on. We have seen the Premier grilled by IBAC, by the anti-corruption commission, at least twice and possibly a third time. We have heard the member for Brighton tell us here in this chamber today that not on one, not on two but on three occasions when the Premier has been grilled about important information he just could not remember. He could not recall. I mean, seriously, a Premier that cannot recall these important elements? Go all the way back to hotel quarantine where 801 lives were lost during that time, an important time—forget about the contracts that were not awarded through any process, the Premier literally just giving contracts to people like we have seen with the security firms that have gone broke, that were not even fit for purpose in New South Wales but ended up taking on contracts here in Victoria. You would think the government would do their homework to see whether these security firms were actually fit for purpose. Oh, no—this government just kept handing out jobs for their mates. But forget that—when the Premier was grilled about hotel quarantine and was asked about the private security guards and who appointed them, over 30 times he said, ‘I don’t know who made that decision. I don’t know’. ‘I’m the Premier, the buck stops with me’, we have heard many times in this Parliament, but he could not recall who actually made the decision with hotel quarantine.

But that is not all. The Premier was grilled by the anti-corruption commission over Operation Sandon. This was again about his association with property developer John Woodman, who is currently under investigation for alleged corrupt land deals. Again the Premier said, ‘I don’t recall having discussed anything with him’, when Mr Woodman, the land developer, had gone out for a $10 000 dumpling lunch at the Flower Drum with the Premier. It was reported that during his evidence before the secret hearing as part of Operation Sandon, the agency’s two-year investigation into allegedly corrupt land deals in Casey, the Premier recalled the Flower Drum luncheon. He remembered having the lunch—of course he did—but said he had no recollection of Mr Woodman or his associates raising any matters with him. Oh, they just went in for a feed for about 10 000 bucks. I tell you what, it must have been a pretty good feed.

Then the third time the Premier said he could not recall any communications with the United Firefighters Union (UFU) boss amid an anti-corruption probe—this is back in 2018—into the firefighters deal. This is really interesting, because the Premier said he could not recall whether he had ever exchanged texts with the United Firefighters Union boss, Peter Marshall. Now, I wonder how many other members of Parliament can recall whether they have ever texted someone. I mean, surely he would have remembered this. And what happens with his texts? Do they go in some secret delete button? I mean, I tell you what, this is a Premier that is constantly hiding, being secretive and before more IBAC inquiries than hot lunches. I mean, this bloke, fair dinkum, have a look at his form. It just keeps on going.

As I said, it is very important. Integrity goes to the heart and trust of any government. If you do not have integrity, you do not have anything. Forget about all the rest. Forget about when it comes to infrastructure and all the wonderful things. If you have got a dodgy government, the rest is secondary. The one thing that I can certainly say—one of the key things that we can be proud of—is that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission was started here in Victoria under a Liberal government between 2010 and 2014. We were the ones that funded it, we were the ones that put it in place, and we are the ones that have been calling each and every day for more funding for IBAC, more funding for the Ombudsman and more funding for the Parliamentary Budget Office.

And what does this government do when it comes to transparency? ‘Oh, no. We’ve got more important issues to worry about’. All of these agencies are screaming for more money so they can do their job, and this government strangles them, because you know what? If they have got no money, they cannot do the job. Show me the money; that is what they need. Show me the money, and give these integrity watchdogs the opportunity to do their job. If you have got nothing to hide, then why not give them the money so they can do their job. Why not do that? Mr Davis in the other place has been asking for that. He has put motions to the chamber. Again, many of those crossbenchers have voted them down. I mean, integrity is at the core, and this government has failed when it comes to that. They failed with red shirts. They failed with IBAC. They failed with the UFU and the deals with the UFU.

We are talking about another element of integrity. A second element that was spoken about during the election was women. I mean, how many women, including Jane Garrett and many of those in the CFA, were bullied, intimidated and pushed out during that period, and all for Peter Marshall and his mates? I mean, seriously, all for Peter Marshall and his mates—and we still do not know what Peter Marshall has got on this government. We still do not know. We are still waiting. What has he got on this government? Because when it comes to secret dodgy deals, I cannot remember when there have been three current IBAC investigations—three—on a government.

Ms Staley: Because never—

Mr Newbury: Never happened before.

Mr SOUTHWICK: It never ever happened. And the Premier has been there at least twice, if not a third time. And then, if that is not enough, we have an IBAC Committee in which we try to get to the bottom of things, and the member from the other place, Harriet Shing, cuts the feed when we start to talk about the Premier and start to quiz what happened in terms of all of these things, whether he was there, whether he gave evidence and what happened when it comes to some of these corruption inquiries. They cut the feed.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Morris): Order!

Mr SOUTHWICK: And again I am being cut now, because the truth hurts.

Mr Carroll: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I seek your advice, because I am having a look here at Rulings from the Chair, and there is a section here on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. It says:

Matters before IBAC, where an individual’s actions are under review, should be treated as other matters before commissions and subject to sub judice conventions.

I think Ms Shing was right to do what she did, and I seek your advice if it is appropriate, then, for that member to be raising it in this context in the lower house.

Ms Staley: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, the event that the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party referred to did not occur at IBAC, it occurred at a parliamentary committee hearing.

Mr SOUTHWICK: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I ask you to rule the point of order out of order in that I very clearly said that this was a committee hearing which was on the public record. It was a committee hearing, and I ask you to rule the point of order out of order.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Morris): I will seek advice. The matter was before a parliamentary committee. You cannot talk about individual orders, but when you are talking about matters on the public record, that is fine. So it is in order.

Mr SOUTHWICK: This government are crooks, they are liars and they are corrupt.