Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (10:52): It should come as no surprise to anyone that today I will be reporting on the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s report on the inquiry into the adequacy of the legislative framework for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. This was tabled in December last year, and it made quite a few recommendations with regard to definitions, which we have heard the Greens speak a lot on. In fact it made 31 different recommendations, the first of course being the change of corrupt conduct. People ask me all the time, in my electorate in particular: how on earth do they get away with it?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Mildura, can you just reiterate the committee report you are speaking on?

Jade BENHAM: The Integrity and Oversight Committee’s inquiry into the adequacy of the legislative framework for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Committee. It has not actually been updated on the Clerk’s list. It was tabled on 4 December last year.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for your patience, member for Mildura. You have the call on the report.

Jade BENHAM: Honestly, patience is not something I am known for usually, so you are quite welcome. I will continue, because I am losing patience with the level of alleged corruption that is going on on Victoria’s Big Build sites, as I am sure all Victorians are, and they should be outraged as well.

The Integrity and Oversight Committee has done a lot of work. There were a lot of hearings that went into presenting this report. On September last year we had the IBAC Commissioner and CEO come in, and they were asked during that public hearing what needed to be done to actually empower IBAC – our Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission – to crack down on corruption in the public sector.

We need follow-the-money powers first and foremost. Okay, great. That was recommendation 5 in this report. There was also a recommendation to investigate corrupt conduct by third-party and private subcontractors where there is a substantial connection between alleged corrupt conduct and government funding. We posed the question to the commissioner then: has the Premier referred the case of alleged misconduct and corruption on Big Build sites, as reported by Nick McKenzie, to IBAC? They would not tell us. We now know that happened. Since then there has been nothing. No proactive action has been taken by either the Premier or the IBAC Commissioner, as we found out during a public hearing on Monday when I asked a very simple question: have you formally, after this report and after this hearing, written to the Premier to seek those powers that you so desperately need to do your job, given that you are the anti-corruption commission? There was a long pregnant pause. The answer certainly was not yes, which leads me to conclude the answer was no.

You can imagine my frustration sitting on that panel and the frustration of the member for Rowville, who has been on that committee, I might add, for 12 years now – Monday was probably his last hurrah – the frustration of sitting there and not getting answers from the independent body that is supposed to be investigating corruption on these worksites. They do not have the powers, which was illustrated and recommendations made in this report. It was reported on in September, and nothing has been done since then, so it does beg the question: does IBAC actually want to do anything about it? But it also illustrates the lengths that this government will go to to cover it up.

Not only are they passing the buck every chance they get, they are now proactively dismantling legislation in this place and in the other place to not give IBAC the powers it needs to investigate corruption on public work sites. It beggars belief. When people ask me often, ‘How do they get away with it?’, it is because the definitions do not empower it. They do not have the powers to do anything about it, and it is all on the government because they are proactively blocking any change to legislation.