Wednesday, 3 May 2023

Integrity and Oversight Committee

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

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (10:25): I too rise to speak on The Independent Performance Audits of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Victorian Inspectorate that was tabled out of session last year on 31 October, and in particular I will be focusing my attention on the minority report that forms part of that document. IBAC, the anti-corruption commission, was established by the Liberal government when we were last in government in order to deal with integrity matters, because there were very many matters of great concern in integrity, certainly around the government that had been there – the Bracks–Brumby government had been there for 11 years, and I look at what has continued to happen since. In the last four years – the last eight years, probably, since the Andrews Labor government has been in – integrity is just continuing to slide. Never before have there been so many inquiries by IBAC into a government. It is really quite extraordinary.

I want to comment firstly on the chairs, because I have been in this place for three terms now, and one of the things that really surprises me is in all the committees that I have been involved in we have had a consistent chair, but in this four-year term the Integrity and Oversight Committee had five – so four years, five chairs. They did not even get to do a year each, and that is really quite extraordinary and unheard of in itself. The first chair was the member for Melton. He seemed to say just a moment ago that it was all hunky-dory. Well, I can tell you that it absolutely went downhill from there. The member for Altona, who was a former Attorney-General, would have been a good appointment as chair. We had then the former member for Ringwood, who is no longer in this place with this Parliament. Ms Shing in the other place was the fourth chair, and then the one who lasted the distance at the very end was the member for Narre Warren South. So we had five different chairs, which means that there was no consistency. That is pretty extraordinary. But what was consistent was the deputy chair, the member for Sandringham. In his first term he did a fabulous job, and from the outside looking in to the operations of the committee I think it was very good that we did have the deputy chair consistent, as was the member for Rowville and the member in the other place at the time from Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party. So there were a few on the opposite team from the government who were consistent there, but not within the government.

With the minority report, this is really quite extraordinary. For something that is on IBAC, on integrity, you would think people would all be on the same page, but no, that was not the case. Within the minority report put by the deputy chair and the member for Rowville was a particular recommendation: that the incoming Integrity and Oversight Committee of the 60th Parliament should review and rewrite sections of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act 2011 and the Victorian Inspectorate Act 2011 with a particular focus on the framework of integrity agency performance audits. Why has this come up? Why was this recommendation required? Well, we had something that was also unprecedented during an audit. The auditors, Callida Pty Ltd, were appointed by the Parliament of Victoria to audit IBAC and the Victorian Inspectorate. You would expect that an auditor could do their job independently, because that is what an auditor is about, but that was not the case at all because the auditor was directed – not nudged, directed – by one of the Labor members of the committee to change their report. This is something that shows me that the Andrews Labor government does not understand integrity. Their flagrant disregard for the processes of the committee and for the processes of the audit is just something that I am flabbergasted by. And not only did they direct them to change the content, but they also threatened not to pay for the audit. That is completely low, and it is conclusive evidence that this government does not understand integrity.