Wednesday, 8 March 2023

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Integrity and Oversight Committee

The Independent Performance Audits of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Victorian Inspectorate

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (10:10): The 60th Parliament received The Independent Performance Audits of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Victorian Inspectorate report, and it is that report I want to speak to today. This is a report that was produced after a review that was instigated after the legislative change in 2018 that required a review to be done.

We looked at organisations such as IBAC and the Victorian Inspectorate, and we set up IBAC as a Liberal government when we were in government between 2010 and 2014 for the reasons that we felt it was important to have openness, transparency and to make sure that people have confidence in the systems because corruption after years and years of Labor was something that was concerning. I am very proud to be part of a team that set up an organisation such as IBAC, and it is very disappointing that we stand here today and we have got a report that says we were supposed to be able to have a review take place but as a result of the legislation needing amending – today, still – we are not really able to do the proper review.

So there was the appointment of the auditor, and the auditors then spent a long time, rather than being able to complete the audit, working out what they were allowed to have access to and were hamstrung by the secrecy that was preventing them from being able to do their job. As a result of that, a minority report was produced which recommends that the legislation be amended so that these audits can take place properly, but I am not sure we will see that in this term of government despite the recommendation by the minority of the committee. Clearly the majority of the committee did not require –

Members interjecting.

Roma BRITNELL: I would like to continue. It is very difficult when you cannot actually hear yourself speaking, but thank you very much.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Roma BRITNELL: Thank you for that, Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, it is important to have integrity and oversight, and the Integrity and Oversight Committee who actually got this review happening according to the legislation were unable to actually get the results to understand whether there is effectiveness in IBAC and the Victorian Inspectorate. Now, why do we need that?

We need that because the community want to have faith in their government, and we have got examples like in South-West Coast where the Victorian Inspectorate has been asked to review a case with a local council that did not go through due process – that will be investigated – and there was the sacking of the CEO who was then later reappointed by a court decision. As a result, the community have referred the issue to the Victorian Inspectorate. As a result of that we are still waiting, for some years now, for that case to be heard. Consequently, the community are very angry and have spoken to me on a number of occasions about the fact that that case has not come before the Victorian Inspectorate and there is no time frame. There is no understanding of when that will happen, and as a consequence, one of the people who is to be investigated stood in the last election in November 2022, as a candidate, and now works for a member for Western Victoria Region in the Parliament.

So you can understand why the community are unhappy that they cannot get an answer from the Victorian Inspectorate as to when that case will be heard. That is why we need transparency. That is why this minority report quite clearly states that the legislation needs to be changed, but we have got a government who wants this corruption to prevail, who wants this despite recommendations by their own Labor-appointed Commissioner of IBAC last year Robert Redlich, who I believe wrote to the Parliament via the Speaker and the President in the other place, and yet we have not been able to see that information. We have no transparency. We argued last week that we should have independent chairs of committees so the majority is not from the government so there is more transparency, which was exactly what Commissioner Robert Redlich recommended when he spoke on radio last year.

But unfortunately we have got a government who do not want to see that. They want majority so they can continue to put things under secrecy and under cover. We have five – that we know of – IBAC investigations of our Premier. This is a disgraceful state of affairs.