Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (10:30): I rise to speak on the report into the independent performance audits of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and Integrity Oversight Victoria. These audits provide an important, independent assessment of whether, during the relevant two-year period, IBAC and IOV achieved their objectives effectively, economically, efficiently and in accordance with their governing legislation. But it is hard for our integrity agencies to do their job when the government refuses to give them the resources that they need. As the Ombudsman, IBAC Commissioner and Auditor-General wrote in a joint paper in February this year:

… ensuring integrity agencies are transparently and … appropriately funded is essential to maintaining public confidence in the system.

The Labor government is failing to do that. Since 2019 Victoria’s investment in integrity functions has fallen below Transparency International’s recommended minimum of 0.5 per cent of total government sector expenditure. Not only does the government need to fund our integrity agencies more, but it also needs to make sure that this funding is actually independent. The bodies that investigate public sector corruption should not have their funding decided by the very politicians they are trying to hold to account. Victorians deserve to know that these agencies are funded on the basis of what they need to do their work and not on what the government they are investigating is prepared to give them.

The Greens have had some major integrity wins just this term in Parliament, and I commend my colleague Tim Read on his role as the chair of the Integrity and Oversight Committee that presented this report and on all of his work to hold the government to account on integrity. The Greens have got ministerial diaries published to allow Victorians to see who is influencing government and how they are doing it. We have pushed the government to commit to follow-the-money powers for IBAC so IBAC can track how taxpayer money flows through subcontractors and labour hire firms on major government projects. Now, I know it is a sore point for Labor ministers and MPs when the Greens, from our seats back here, actually get major wins in Parliament. You can tell it is an election year when Labor start to pull the ideas that the Greens have put on the table and start to enact them because they are desperate to get those votes, and that means picking up Greens ideas and running with them. The problem is they only ever do them half-arsed and they do not actually follow through, because all they want is to get your votes and just go back to business as usual.

Recently the Greens have also secured a commitment from the government to expand its definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, which is something the Greens have been pushing for for years and years so that IBAC can actually investigate grey corruption. This is absolutely essential, because what is the point of follow-the-money powers if you can see where the money has gone but you actually have no power to investigate conduct that would make Victorians lose faith in government because that threshold is far too high. With these expanded powers, funding for integrity agencies is more critical than ever. If the government are going to brag about giving new powers to IBAC, they also need to give the funding that IBAC needs to actually use these powers.

The Greens also secured in legislation that the parliamentary Integrity and Oversight Committee has a non-government chair and a non-government majority so that it can effectively scrutinise and hold the government of the day to account. When it comes to scandal and corruption, governments should not be able to investigate themselves, and this change made an important step in fixing this hole in Victoria’s integrity and oversight system. But there are still major integrity reforms that we desperately need. Labor, Liberals and One Nation still take millions in donations from big corporations, including fossil fuel companies, the gambling lobby and property developers. While they are busy getting their election campaigns funded by vested interests, they are leaving their communities behind.

We cannot have real integrity in this state without getting rid of the undue influence that corporate donors have on Labor, the Liberals and One Nation. We need a complete ban on political donations from property developers, from gambling companies, from fossil fuel companies and from weapons and other industries with significant financial interests before government. Other states have already banned donations from property developers, but the Victorian Labor government has refused to do so. This new Premier has claimed that integrity is non-negotiable. If that is the case, at the very least he should follow New South Wales and the ACT by banning political donations from property developers and gambling corporations before the election.