Tuesday, 3 March 2026

 Tim READ (Brunswick) (12:33): I move:

That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act ‍2011 in relation to the meaning of ‘corrupt conduct’, to provide for follow-the-dollar powers, to remove unnecessary barriers to holding public hearings and for other purposes.

It differs from the bill produced by the opposition just now in that it includes all three of the amendments that members will recall were circulated in the upper house in the last sitting week. The one that was missing from the Liberal bill was the removal of a restriction on IBAC which currently requires it to only investigate matters if they are a criminal offence. It is something of an understatement to say that the Allan Labor government has serious corruption and integrity questions to answer right now, and every Victorian deserves to know the truth about what has been going on under its watch. The fastest way for Victorians to get these answers is to immediately pass legislation to strengthen IBAC, and that starts with everybody in this chamber supporting this motion today. If the Labor government oppose this procedural motion, we can only conclude that they do not want the Victorian public to know the truth about the depth and breadth of Big Build corruption.

I have seen media reports that Labor has labelled the Greens amendments in the last sitting week a political stunt.

If that is a stunt, then I do not know what word we could use to describe the Premier pretending to the media that IBAC was investigating these allegations when she knew that they were not. The Premier’s stunt of hiding behind a referral that IBAC had already dismissed was dishonest and a misjudgement. It is a bit like the old teenager trick of swapping out your parents’ gin with water: a short-term, desperate ploy that is certain to be uncovered.

We have an opportunity in this chamber this morning to turn the Premier’s stunt into something meaningful by supporting this motion seeking to introduce a bill to give IBAC the powers it actually needs, the powers that IBAC told us yesterday in public hearings that they need. Turning the Premier’s pretend IBAC referral into a real investigation of Big Build corruption would be an outcome that is the opposite of a stunt. I have also observed the government suggesting that proposed reforms to IBAC are rushed, that they need more than the 12 years in government they have had to make any changes to the anti-corruption commission. Rushed? The Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales has had these powers for at least a decade. Rather than rushed, what is scandalous here is that we are actually having to debate them today in Victoria.

I could point out to state Labor that their federal Labor colleagues managed to create an anti-corruption commission from scratch and give it equivalent powers by passing legislation in a little over six months from being elected. Other anti-corruption giants, such as the late Honourable Stephen Charles AO KC, the father of Victoria’s IBAC, who died last year, had been advocating for these very IBAC powers from the moment he helped create IBAC in 2011. Since being elected in 2018, I have observed the Greens trying on several occasions to introduce these laws and been repeatedly blocked by state Labor, so these reforms are not rushed.

The reforms in the bill that I wish to introduce are based on the considered recommendations from integrity experts, and you heard them all in the inquiry that the Integrity and Oversight Committee had into IBAC’s legislation late last year. Integrity experts like IBAC itself, Integrity Oversight Victoria, the Centre for Public Integrity, the Victorian Bar and the Law Institute of Victoria all want these reforms, particularly the broadening of the definition of ‘corruption’, the one that the opposition has not yet decided to support. These reforms are long overdue and predate the recent revelations of billions of dollars of Big Build corruption. But surely an estimated $15 billion corruption scandal – alleged corruption in Victoria on a dollar scale akin to any of the worst kleptocratic governments anywhere in the world – must mean that we see no more delay.

Victorians deserve answers. They deserve to know how much of their money has gone to bling adorning Mick Gatto and other organised criminals, and how this was allowed to happen. They deserve to get the investigation that the Premier wrote to IBAC about. The public must be able to see IBAC working to hold state government officials accountable and upholding integrity in this state. A government with nothing to hide would support this bill.

 Paul HAMER (Box Hill) (12:38): I rise to oppose the motion put forward by the member for Brunswick. We have a very large agenda this week, including changes to the Crimes Act 1958, which will obviously go through the usual process in the government business program and the usual legislative process. I know it is one that we have been trying to debate for some time to get some changes, and it is going to be really important, amongst the other legislative amendments that are proposed. For that reason, I oppose the motion.

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (12:39): I rise to briefly make some comments about the member for Brunswick’s motion to urgently introduce this bill to amend IBAC and give IBAC greater powers to investigate and report on corruption here in Victoria. It could not be more urgent. We just heard a Labor member get up and say ‘We can’t possibly do it this week. We don’t have the time. We’ve got other important things we need to do.’ What could be more urgent and more important than finding out where potentially $15 billion of Victorian public money has gone, and what could be more important and more urgent than rooting out corruption in Victoria?

I think this might be the third time that the Greens have attempted to introduce laws to strengthen IBAC and give our anti-corruption watchdog the powers that it has long, long been asking for.

This bill does three things. It gives IBAC follow-the-dollar powers, it allows for public hearings with IBAC and, thirdly and very importantly, it expands the jurisdiction so that IBAC does not have such a high threshold, a high bar, of what defines corruption and therefore what it can look into. The bar in Victoria is so much higher than anywhere else, which means IBAC is significantly hamstrung. These three things match the amendments that the Greens have moved in the other place. I note that the Liberal Party do not support the expanded jurisdiction, and I urge them to reconsider, because I think this is something that many experts have been calling for and a really important part of bringing our anti-corruption laws up to scratch with other states.

The Greens have done this – introduced amendments and introduced bills to reform the anti-corruption watchdog – despite consistent blocking from the Victorian Labor Party. I think that Victorians have every right to ask what more the Labor Party have to hide, when in particular Labor this week have gone to quite extraordinary lengths to stop Greens amendments in the other place, which had the numbers to pass this Parliament and which if they had been allowed to get to a vote last week would have meant that we fixed our anti-corruption system here in Victoria. We could have had this done and dusted last week, which is why it is so urgent to bring it this week. The reason that we are seeking to introduce this bill today is because we have tried every other measure. We have tried amending the justice bill in the other place. We have tried moving it in a general business slot in the upper house previously. We have even said to the government, ‘We don’t need to own this issue.’ If the Labor Party want to bring their own IBAC bill, then we are all for it. We will support it. But of course they will not.

The Labor government has blocked every single one of those attempts to strengthen our integrity measures here in Victoria, and now it is urgent because we have seen these explosive allegations about the cost of alleged corruption on Victoria’s Big Build construction sites, corruption that Geoffrey Watson SC has estimated cost $15 billion. Even if it is only a small percentage of that, that is quite an extraordinary amount of money. State Labor has said that this $15 billion figure, despite also being supported by Fair Work Commission general manager Murray Furlong, is in the Premier’s words ‘untested’, to which the Greens’ response is ‘Then let’s test it.’ What does the Labor Party have to hide? If you believe that that figure is incorrect, let us test it, let us investigate, let us get to the bottom of it and let us give IBAC the powers to do that. Good governments should not hide from anti-corruption watchdogs. It is a core tenet of a democracy to have functioning anti-corruption watchdogs, and Victorians deserve answers. They deserve to know how much of their money has gone missing and how it was allowed to happen. We simply cannot afford another corruption scandal. Victorians are being told now that we do not have enough money to fund our environmental agencies, we have got to cut VicHealth promotions to make budget savings, we cannot fund our community health centres, we need to cut public schools funding and we have got to demolish public housing, all because we do not have enough money for these basic, fundamental, essential public services. The Labor Party are happy to cut all of these services because they do not want to look into where public money has gone on Big Build construction sites, and I just think that is not right.

Surely it is also in the Labor Party’s interest to support this bill. Surely they do not want this corruption scandal hanging around until election time. What have they got to hide in not supporting this bill? Who knows? But the public will be watching how the Labor Party and how the Liberal Party vote on this bill.

 Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:44): I stand to oppose the motion by the member for Brunswick, and in doing so I do it to represent my community, a proudly diverse community which deserves protection and which deserves the safety of the justice legislation that we are bringing to this place. My community is looking to us for the respect and the protection that we want to provide, and those opposite may be dragging their feet to get there, but we simply need to cut the stunts and get to the serious business of keeping people safe in Victoria.

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (12:50): I note the brevity of the government MPs’ contributions to this debate, because there is actually very little to find in being able to justify opposing this motion by the member for Brunswick. In fact it is pretty urgent that we introduce these robust anti-corruption laws to Parliament this week. It has been a long time coming through countless recommendations from inquiries, KCs and other commissions, which have recommended that we expand IBAC to actually give it some teeth so that it can actually investigate corrupt behaviour.

By referring the Big Build corruption allegations on to IBAC, the Premier has indicated that she knows that these allegations should be investigated. She was happy for the whole state to believe that an investigation was underway. Now we know that it was not and that –

Mary-Anne Thomas: On a point of order, Speaker, this is a narrow procedural motion and the member on her feet is required to be factual. I ask that you ask the member to come back to the narrow procedural debate and that she remain factual in her contributions.

The SPEAKER: I again remind members that there is a requirement in the standing orders to be factual when they are on their feet. This is a narrow debate. The member for Richmond to come back to the debate before the house.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI: It is imperative that this bill be debated right now, because now that we know that an investigation was not underway and that the best part of two years has been lost to this sham, there is no time to lose. This Parliament must give IBAC the teeth that it needs to commence an investigation so that Victorians know the full truth about the $15 billion lost to corruption. If the Premier wants to get to the bottom of Big Build corruptions, then she can support this bill and she can refer the matter to them again, knowing that IBAC can actually investigate.

We should introduce this bill without delay. Everyone has already seen most of it. It is mostly exactly the same as the three amendments that we circulated in the upper house only two weeks ago. That would be considered the bathwater that Labor found so objectionable that they threw out their own baby in the form of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2025. It did a whole lot of other things that the government presumably wanted to do, but they found it so objectionable that we added these IBAC amendments, that they got rid of their own bill. We have just added, to be clear, the power for IBAC to make findings of corrupt conduct and clarified the definition of a public body and public officer. Members can surely understand the urgency of legislating more power for IBAC this week, given that every moment counts after we have lost so much time to the Premier’s IBAC referral stunt. We know that the coalition supported two of our three amendments: introducing follow-the-dollar powers and making it easier to hold public hearings. It is worth asking why the Liberals want to restrict IBAC to only investigating indictable criminal offences, bribery and misconduct in public office after the many, many recommendations that they be allowed to investigate grey corruption as well. That restriction actually prevents IBAC from making findings of corrupt conduct, as IBAC said yesterday.

Introducing this bill is also an opportunity for both major parties to show their commitment to investigating corruption. Victorians expect that. Victorians deserve nothing less than a corruption watchdog with real teeth, not some watered-down, decaffeinated version. Unless we see urgent legislation empowering IBAC to fully investigate outsourced government projects, Victorians will be asking, ‘How much more money will be lost to corruption in the future?’ We are unlikely to claw back that $15 billion. That has likely been spent on bikes and bling and meth by now, but Victorians have a right to know how their money was lost, and what the government knew and when, so that this never happens again.

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (12:49): I rise to make another brief contribution opposing the procedural motion from the member for Brunswick. I want to echo the very thoughtful contribution by the member for Yan Yean and totally agree with her that there is some constructive and important business for all our communities for the government to get to and for this Parliament to get to. I did find the member for Brunswick’s contribution slightly more compelling than the member for Brighton’s. I did not quite follow the gin and water analogy, but I will check that out in Hansard. But I will otherwise oppose this motion for the same reason as previous government members.

Assembly divided on motion: