Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Motions

Ombudsman referral

Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (15:11): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes the resolution of the Council on Wednesday, 17 June 2020, referring a matter to the Ombudsman has led to Operation Watts, a coordinated investigation that the Ombudsman is undertaking with the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) into a range of matters including allegations of ‘branch stacking’ aired in media reports in 2020;

(2) further to that resolution, refers the following matters, pursuant to section 16 of the Ombudsman Act 1973, as part of an expanded investigation:

(a) the red shirts scheme, including the role of the then opposition leader, the Honourable Daniel Andrews MP, in designing, propagating and facilitating the scheme;

(b) all electorate officers and ministerial advisers performing factional tasks during work hours from all factions of the Australian Labor Party (ALP);

(c) the extent of branch-stacking activities and funding of branch-stacking activities, in particular whether government funds have been misdirected to pay for memberships from electorate office budgets, including, but not limited to, through arrangements for the provision of printing, office supplies or other services;

(d) the allegations in the 14 August 2021 article published in the Age titled ‘The chosen few: how Victoria is really governed’ that ALP activists are ‘stacked’ into the public service thus compromising objectivity and professionalism and increasing the risk of corruption;

(e) the Premier’s taxpayer-funded social media unit staff;

(f) the monetising of factional politics through the new trend of occupying the dual role of lobbyists/faction powerbroker to ensure that factional power over members is not misused for personal financial gain;

(3) requires the Ombudsman to consider her powers and obligations under the Ombudsman Act 1973 to refer matters to and share information with IBAC and other integrity bodies with a view to expanding the scope of Operation Watts to include the matters referred to in paragraph (2);

and requires the Clerk to write to the Victorian Ombudsman and the IBAC Commissioner to convey the terms of this resolution.

There are a number of parts to this motion. I will briefly speak to each one of them in turn. Part (2)(a) relates to the red shirts issue, so let me just briefly go through the issues relevant to the red shirts—I can speak to that all day. After a pretty sensationalised TV program this house moved a motion referring the contents of the TV program to the Ombudsman, as it should have, and the Attorney-General, as she should have, wrote to IBAC asking for IBAC to investigate—I think that was in the interests of everyone, including me, for that to have happened. However, notwithstanding the colour and movement of that particular program, I was very comfortable with where I expected things to land. All the narrative and the false assertions—because a serious integrity body was investigating, I was comfortable. I was happy for it to come back. I wanted it to come back as quickly as possible, and then I wanted to leave this place.

I was surprised when IBAC came back and said that they were holding a public inquiry—in about October last year they came back to me with a letter and said that—because, they said, they had distilled the entire program to electorate officers, which was marginal to the program actually. There were a whole lot of other bad things in that program, but that was marginal to it. They said that that in their view potentially met a serious corruption charge, and that was based on electorate officers perhaps doing some party-political work. So I was a bit surprised at that.

Unlike the red shirts issue, which was systematic and centralised, my electorate officers had very serious instructions: you rock up to work. If anyone does not rock up to work, they get their payment docked. IBAC had about six or seven years of my text messages, and they found several instances of electorate officers doing some factional tasks. Now, on some of those occasions those EOs themselves—they are all activists in their own right—were self-motivated. In other cases my erstwhile friend Anthony Byrne had directed them to do it.

Notwithstanding all of that, the government’s defence in the red shirts affair was as follows: section 30(4) gives MPs the ability to direct the responsibilities and duties of their electorate officers. This was the government’s defence, and nothing has changed from when the government put out its defence. Even though the legislation has changed, it did not get to this particular issue. Section 30(2) states:

The employment of a person under subsection (1) must be under an agreement in writing and is subject to any terms and conditions that are determined for the time being by the presiding officers, acting jointly.

On the face of it, it looks like, ‘Well, that’s pretty bad’, because it cuts across 30(4), but the wording in 30(4) says ‘Despite subsection (2)’. I am running through not my position, I am running through the government’s position when it was defending the red shirts. In other words, that would make any members guide ultra vires. So you as the President do not have the power to put up a members guide because of section 30(4), according to this. That was the government’s defence.

I have told you what I allegedly did: serious corruption based on random casual interaction. I do not know whether I need to go into red shirts. I will not go into it, because everyone sort of knows what it is, but let me tell you what the factional equivalent of red shirts would have been. I think I have never done that publicly before, and that is probably a more powerful way of explaining it. The factional equivalent to red shirts would have been me calling 25 factionally aligned MPs and directing them to sign off on time sheets for six months in advance—essentially a false document saying that they actually worked certain times, the times that were dictated by me—and then having those people sit in a factional office somewhere ringing the 17 700 ALP members in order to recruit them into my particular faction. That could be any faction. That would have been the factional equivalent. And not only that, having my staff member oversee the whole thing. That would have been the factional equivalent, the party-political equivalent of red shirts. No-one watching IBAC would have thought that was the case.

The problem we have got is this. Let us now go to the Ombudsman’s report. Again, this house made a referral to the Ombudsman with the red shirts issue, and I think it was done by Mr Barber, who was very good at governance-related issues—very, very good. He had the government ministers scared of him. Literally when he walked into the chamber people were scared, because he was very good on governance. The red shirts referral to the Ombudsman—if you read the Ombudsman’s report, she says what she did when she got the referral. She says she went to the Supreme Court. She wanted to test her powers in the Supreme Court, her jurisdiction in the Supreme Court.

Mr Davis: They said yes.

Mr SOMYUREK: They said yes. The government challenged. It ended up in the High Court. Now, make no mistake about this. I am not standing here pretending that I was not on the government’s side. I was barracking like mad for the government. I did not want that hanging over my head. I was concerned, very concerned. I was barracking for the government, let us be clear about this. I was hoping it would go away. I was hoping the Supreme Court, I was hoping the High Court would knock it off. They did not. Then she says in the report the government claimed exclusive cognisance. She said she was not going to pursue it any further because she was worried about the cost that had already been clocked up. Then we did not cooperate because she did not have the coercive powers. She could not subpoena documents. She could not compel witnesses to turn up.

So despite all of these things—I am not criticising the Ombudsman, by the way; I will get to my point in a second—her state of mind at that moment was obviously that this was not corrupt. All of these things lead me to believe that her state of mind was that red shirts was not corrupt, it was a mere breach of the electoral entitlements. Let us not forget that contemporaneously we had the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker also rorting their entitlements. That is important because it gives you the atmosphere, the milieu of the times too. So she thought, obviously—I am just trying to assume her state of mind—that this was not a corruption matter, it was a breach-of-entitlements matter.

Now, what the legislation says that she ought to have done—not ‘ought to have’, compels her to do—is that if there are any reasonable grounds to suspect corruption, 16E(1) of the Ombudsman Act 1973 states clearly that she ought to have gone to IBAC and notified IBAC. Why? Because it is corruption. Why? She does not have coercive powers. The Ombudsman does not have coercive powers. Even when she got knocked back—the government was not cooperating, it was going to the High Court, all of those steps—the Ombudsman still did not go to the IBAC, because she did not think there were reasonable grounds for corruption. Again, I am not critical of the Ombudsman, I am just saying there is an anomaly here. It is highly likely now that she, when the IBAC Commissioner has asked, and counsel assisting are saying that random acts based on seven years of text messages are matters of serious corruption. That means the Ombudsman has reassessed what has happened, so I think it is only fair that we go back to the Ombudsman and put it to her. She might say that she has not changed her mind—that that is IBAC going off on a frolic. I doubt it. Then we would have a real problem. But if she has changed her mind—and that is perfectly acceptable; it is actually a sign of strength and intelligence when people can change their minds and not just dig in obstinately on a particular issue—I think that is a good sign, if someone is able to change their mind, but I think we should give her the chance and send it off there.

Let us not forget it is not just, ‘Oh well, that happened, this happened; it doesn’t matter’. No, there is a fundamental principle on the line here. When we make legislation, we make legislation based on principle, not based on people or factions or politics or political parties. That is a very important principle, and the follow-on from that principle is that everyone is equal before the law. That is a cornerstone of every liberal democracy, it is a fundamental human right and it is indeed entrenched in legislation in this place, in the 2006 Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. So I would seek support for this to go back to the Ombudsman so that we can get some—I mean, I have got a lot on the line here. I have got a lot on the line here. I have got no doubt nothing is going to happen from the IBAC. That is dangerous territory, saying that, because they have got the power to determine whatever they want. But I am very scared about the red shirts issue. I am very scared, so if this gets through today, you are not going to see me, but I will be going home and not being able to sleep at night. But there is a principle on the line. There is a principle on the line. This is not a game. IBAC coming at you for signing six months of timesheets is not a game—when staff have not been in your office; they have campaigned. That is not a game. This is a matter of principle.

Moving on—that is enough about red shirts—based on the same principle of equality before the law, we have also got (2)(b) of the motion about other factions. It should not be just one group. Again, if there is serious corruption in the political party, we are just a product of how the Labor Party has operated for about 50 years. We are not any different. I was not any different. In fact I knew nothing about the factional matters. So I think it is only fair, because I think it is the right thing to do, that if there is serious corruption, the integrity bodies are able to chase down that corruption, find it and weed it out. IBAC have got very, very narrow terms of reference at the moment about that program. We need to give them wider terms of reference so they can chase down corruption in the Labor Party and weed that corruption out. It is just logical; it is a no-brainer.

Now, I could talk about people—who has been doing what—but I have decided I am not going to do that. I could talk about faction secretaries who work in ministers offices; I could talk about all the rest of it. I do not want to go down that path. I am sure those opposite know that I can talk about all those things. What I talked about was political work. IBAC has got a view on political work. It talks about meritocracy. I would respectfully point out the subtle—or not so subtle—difference. The counsel assisting kept talking about patronage, but what he was really talking about, taking the loaded terminology out, was political appointments. Advisers and electorate officers are political appointments. In every democracy you have political appointments. You have the bureaucracy, which is totally at arm’s length from the political appointments and politics. You have political appointments. We have got section 27 in the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, which expressly states that MPs can actively discriminate based on political activism, ideology, values, trust and all the rest of it. That is just a reflection of the fact that electorate officers and all that are political appointments.

However, when political appointments do not do the right thing—they are substandard, they are no good, they bludge, they do not do their work—do you know who suffers? The politician. If a ministerial adviser is not on top of their brief, which goes back to a Socialist Left faction secretary sitting in a minister’s office—if the SL faction secretary did not do his job—with two bad question times he will lose his job. But in the bureaucracy, in the public service, if public service officials are incompetent, do you know who suffers? We all suffer. The community suffers if the bureaucracy are not up to the task. It is not just individuals.

What is happening right at the moment is the destruction of the public service and government agencies by stacking ALP activists and mates. We are heading towards—not back towards, because we have never had one—a spoils system. Now, that was trialled in another place at another time. It was trialled in America in the 1800s. That did not work well. Corruption was rife. We had Tammany Hall at the end of that, and that is where we are going. We are heading towards Tammany Hall unless we put a stop to this right now. Going to a government department is like going to a state conference of the ALP. Looking at a list of departmental heads—well, not heads, but people high up—is like looking at a Labor Party branch list. It is amazing. This needs to stop. This is where you have corruption creeping into your system. This is where corruption takes hold.

Trust in government institutions is very important. If people think that the Premier or the government have got people embedded in the police force, people embedded in IBAC and the integrity bodies, well, they are not going to trust those august bodies, are they? Those bodies need to be trusted. Our police need to be trusted. We need to be able to say that Mr Andrews does not have his tentacles within the police force or the integrity bodies.

Members interjecting.

Mr SOMYUREK: I am not going to make a statement. Odd things have happened, but I am not a conspiracy theorist—at the lower end.

Can I just quickly go through something. This is an organisation—the Age—I am not terribly fond of these days. I think in their former days they were better, but this particular article is spot on, is really good research. It is dated 14 August 2021 and titled ‘The chosen few: how Victoria is really governed’. This has basically uncovered evidence that the Labor Party activists have been stacked into the Labor Party public service, thus compromising the objectivity of the service. If I can just read, I will read fast from this document:

In June 2014 it employed 393 people. In June 2020 its headcount was 1070. The result is a concentration of administrative power at the expense of specialist departments such as health, transport and education.

…

… current and former senior Victorian public servants who raised their concerns with The Age in confidence say that since 2018 and Andrews’ thumping re-election, there has been a marked shift in the number of political operatives installed in senior bureaucratic jobs.

An example cited by multiple sources is the replacement two weeks after the 2018 election of Simon Hollingsworth, an experienced and well-regarded career public servant who has worked for Labor … governments in Victoria and Canberra, with ALP political operative Jamie Driscoll.

Mr Driscoll I just associate with being a National Union of Workers operative—

In his new job as Deputy Secretary of the Budget and Finance Division of the Treasury Department—

Look, this goes on. At the end of the day what we had was that we were desperate to win. We were desperate to win long term. We knew and Mr Andrews knew he had one shot in the locker. He was having a hard time from caucus from both the left and the right. They wanted to bring him down. He was desperate. He did something well beyond what he should have. He crossed the line. He designed this system. He told me personally, ‘You’ve got to take part in this process whether you want to win or not’, and that reflected his mentality at the time.

I am running short of time, but other parts of this motion are also very worthwhile. Unless we want to go down the path of Tammany Hall and a spoils system—that has been tried before, and it has been a spectacular failure—we need to take this opportunity to have IBAC look at all these things.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:32): This government has a clear record of investing in and strengthening Victoria’s oversight and integrity systems that function to investigate and expose improper conduct, corruption and police misconduct and uphold the integrity of our public institutions. This includes providing our integrity agencies with consistent funding since 2014 to ensure they can acquit their legislative requirements. In particular this includes providing IBAC with an additional $50 million in funding over the last two budgets alone and almost $20 million in additional funding to support the Victorian Ombudsman to uncover improper conduct and improve administration to better protect the community.

Since 2019 we have made a range of reforms to strengthen the oversight and integrity of our public institutions, including: making COVID response measures permanent to allow IBAC and other integrity agencies to continue conducting inquiries and investigations over audiovisual links and embed modified service requirements; improving Victoria’s public disclosure system and streamlining oversight of integrity agencies under the new Integrity and Oversight Committee; providing our integrity agencies with greater budgetary independence, with budgets now determined in consultation with the IOC and annual appropriations specified in the Parliament appropriation bill; and other reforms strengthening IBAC’s powers, including the power to arrest a potential witness suspected of corrupt activity if IBAC believes that person is at risk of leaving Victoria. We have also delivered significant reforms to improve transparency and access to information for Victorians through legislative, policy and administrative changes. The Victorian Ombudsman and IBAC therefore absolutely have the resources and the legislation they need to investigate any genuine allegation or evidence of improper conduct, maladministration, corruption and police misconduct.

In relation to the specific matters referenced in this motion, these matters have already been reviewed extensively by the Victorian Ombudsman and Victoria Police. Further, other relevant matters have previously been referred to both IBAC and the Ombudsman by the previous Attorney-General, and those agencies are currently conducting a joint investigation into those matters. IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman have the resources and the legislation they need to investigate these matters, and it is absolutely appropriate that they determine the scope of these investigations free from attempted political interference.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Order! Thank you, Ms Taylor. I know this is a contentious thing, but let us try and keep it down to a dull roar.

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:36): I rise to support Mr Somyurek’s motion. It is a very thoughtful motion, it is a carefully considered motion, it is a motion that goes to the heart of what has gone wrong with our integrity agencies in Victoria and with the proper investigation that should have occurred of the corruption that is at the core of the Andrews Labor government. The truth of the matter is that the report by the Ombudsman—the previous report, and we all know the red shirts report—was referred under section 16. There is a specific section of the act, Ms Taylor, that enables either house or indeed a parliamentary committee to make a referral to the Ombudsman. That is why that section is in operation, and that is why that referral was made.

The truth of the matter is that the government obstructed. The government obstructed the police. The government obstructed the investigation of the Ombudsman. They fought in the court. They blocked it in the court, and they fought and fought and fought. Mr Atkinson, as the then President, acted on behalf of the chamber and made sure that we fought all the way to the High Court, where there was a ruling that the Ombudsman did have powers to undertake these investigations, but she was blocked in effect from getting to many of the architects of the scheme. Yes, she could talk to John Lenders, but she could not talk to Daniel Andrews because the lower house asserted exclusive cognisance. They claimed that they were above the law. They claimed that they ought to not be investigated. They claimed that there was no reason for them to be investigated and that they would block the investigation.

This red shirts matter goes very deep. It goes right to the centre of the Andrews Labor government, and the truth of the matter is that Daniel Andrews and many in this government should be in jail. They stole money, they took money. It is theft. When do you get a bank robber coming out of the bank saying, ‘Oh, I’m caught. I’ll pay back the money. Let me loose’? That is what happened here. They took the money, they stole the money, the theft happened, the crooked stuff happened—and they should be in jail. I say this investigation is appropriate, and I say that Mr Somyurek’s point here that this should be broadened to a number of other matters is correct too.

The hindering of the police investigation was also scandalous. That should not have occurred. The police should have had a clear range, a clear opportunity to talk to whomever they wanted. Of course in a tit-for-tat manoeuvre the lower house put a motion to refer people in this party—the Liberal and National parties—to the Ombudsman. We cooperated in full. We opened all the books and we cooperated impeccably, and the Ombudsman came back and said, ‘There is no case to answer’. Every single member was cleared, because we were honest. We actually laid out the facts. We cooperated fully, and nothing could be further in contrast to what Labor did—the Labor members, the Labor ministers and the Premier in particular, who sought to frustrate the Ombudsman and who used taxpayers money to block the Ombudsman’s opportunities. So I think the claim of exclusive cognisance was simply an attempt to block the investigation of corrupt and crooked activities that Labor had undertaken.

I pay tribute to Mr Barber for moving the original motion, and I hope that Dr Ratnam has the courage to stand by Mr Barber’s honesty and integrity. I hope that she feels that she should do the right thing by the community. This is very important. It is very important that there is no shielding of Labor by members of this house—that for whatever deal may have been done, for whatever side deal may have occurred, there is no shielding of Labor from the proper investigation of the law and the mechanisms that are laid out.

Mr Somyurek in his motion lays out the section 16 referral, and he adds a number of matters. I agree with those matters. He knows more about the internals of the Labor Party than I do, but it is clearly rotten to the core—crooked and rotten the core. At the same time in point (3) he:

requires the Ombudsman to consider her powers and obligations under the Ombudsman Act 1973 to refer matters to and share information with IBAC and other integrity bodies with a view to expanding the scope of Operation Watts to include the matters referred to in paragraph (2)

Well, that invites the Ombudsman to exercise powers that she has under the act. She has those powers. They can be exercised by no-one other than her. The most this motion can do is suggest that she look at these matters. Mr Somyurek is firmly of the view that she should have done that earlier. I am not here to judge the Ombudsman. I just say to her, ‘I have faith in your honesty, I have faith in your integrity and I have faith that, if the evidence is in front of you, you will take the appropriate steps within the frame of that evidence’. That is all this motion, in part (3), asks to happen. It also says that the Clerk should write formally, and obviously that is a sensible mechanical step.

Mr Somyurek talked about 16E, and I understand that is the Ombudsman’s decision, but I do make the point here that Labor has tried to nobble these integrity agencies at every turn. Every Labor member of this chamber voted against an increase in the budget for the Ombudsman and the IBAC last year. Mr Gordon Rich-Phillips and I worked on that, and we put forward that motion to increase the funding to those agencies. When you look back over the funding flows to the agencies it is very clear that their funding has been cut. The early money was used year after year, nibbled away at without the government providing the additional funding that they needed, and even where there was increased activity at an IBAC level and increased activity at an Ombudsman level there was not commensurate funding provided.

So this government, corruptly in my view, has turned the tap right down to a trickle to slow the investigations of IBAC and to slow the investigations of the Ombudsman. I think that is a measure of the corruption in this government. It is a measure of the lack of integrity in this government. I say those bodies need to be funded properly, and that is why we moved that motion.

I do think that the government’s approach on this has from the beginning been a cover-up. It has sought to close down and block investigations at every turn, and it is going to do so again today. If the government had an ounce of integrity, what it would do is just say, ‘That’s fine, we’re happy to be investigated’, just like when the Legislative Assembly passed a motion about the opposition we said, ‘We will cooperate in full. We are not claiming exclusive cognisance in this chamber because the motion came from the Assembly. We are actually going to volunteer the material, volunteer whatever you want’. That is the way this should be conducted. The government should step forward with integrity and honesty and clear up all of the internal corruption inside Labor.

It is clear that there is a factional system in Labor. It is clear that it is a factional system that is driven by money and the sprinkling around of money, and that needs to be dealt with. Our democracy is too important. Our democracy should not be sacrificed by these internal corruptions inside the Labor Party. I see this as a matter for the future of our democracy as a state. We actually need to have this motion passed today to give our state the best chance of clearing up the corruption inside one of our major political parties.

Mr Somyurek has made the point, correctly, that it appears the referrals and the material that have been shunted towards the IBAC are one-sided. It appears that the Premier’s faction has been let off the hook, and this motion seeks to clear that up. It puts the Premier on the hook. His faction and the dirty, grubby dealings that his faction has done should be looked at. They should have the strongest light shone on them by independent agencies that have the power to require witnesses, to obtain documents, to demand attendance and to demand answers to questions. The idea that through the bogus, spurious claims of exclusive cognisance, through the nobbling of the police investigation—

Ms Crozier interjected.

Mr DAVIS: That is exactly right, Ms Crozier. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, and in this case you can see that Labor has a lot to fear because it is corrupt to the core.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (15:46): I welcome this motion today and thank Mr Somyurek for bringing it in, because it is giving this house an opportunity to talk about how we are being governed here in Victoria. The motion we are discussing today has at its heart a concern about the misuse of public funds, a concern that taxpayers money is or was being used for party-political purposes. The perception that this is a widespread problem—that is the perception—is undermining faith in our democratic system, and the public are increasingly aware that corruption is destroying the traditions of the Westminster government system, a system that has served us well in this state for over a hundred years. I am inclined to support Mr Somyurek’s motion not because I wish to attack the Labor Party or continue to harp on about the red shirts issue; I think the principles that can be discussed in this motion could and should apply to both major parties or whoever governs this wonderful state. However, the opposition has only been in government for four of the last 20 years.

The point I particularly like in this motion is the following: to ensure that public sector employees, including government agencies, are employed on a merit-based system to protect the independence of the public service, thereby reducing the risk of corruption.

The motion here moved today by a former cabinet minister of this government raises serious issues about how government is operating in this state. It makes reference to a story in the Age from August last year, which reveals details of political infiltration of the public service by ALP-aligned bureaucrats. Mr Somyurek has already referred to that story by Paul Sakkal and Chip Le Grand:

In nearly every department and within key government agencies, political operatives who have dedicated much of their professional lives to advancing the interests of Labor politicians are employed in executive public service positions …

just as Mr Somyurek described. It goes on:

At the centre of this power structure is the Premier’s Private Office … Sitting outside the public service, unaccountable to parliament and not required to respond to freedom of information requests, this group of 87 people—who outnumber Labor’s MPs—is the most influential and least transparent organ of government in the state.

‘Unaccountable to Parliament and not required to respond to freedom-of-information requests’. What we have in this state is a growing autocracy, a secret inner government underpinned by the government’s large majority in the other place. The public service is becoming increasingly politicised and is losing talented people. When the government changes hands one lot sacks the other lot and we are getting rid of expertise in the high levels of the public service. We lose people experienced in identifying and promoting public policy issues. An unbiased public service is essential for a democratic society.

Unfortunately this motion only scrapes the surface of the toxic cloud of corruption lingering over this state. Whether it is for turning a blind eye to Crown Casino or taking whopping donations from property developers, the major parties must be held to account. They both resisted my call for the banning of donations from property developers, and of course the increasing autocracy of this government is on display for all to see. We have seen it in the changes to planning laws, for instance—Big Build projects running roughshod over local communities.

A member: Bills Street.

Mr HAYES: Yes. And we saw it in the Suburban Rail Loop legislation last year, a prime example of the political public service advice resulting in legislation without a proper business case, which is really a planning power takeover for the property industry at the expense of local democracy. Another example is the pandemic emergency legislation late last year, which was rushed through the lower house and presented to this place without proper consultation. We saw more autocracy. A significant community outcry over that legislation occurred and the autocrats had to reluctantly roll back parts of the power grab. What we need is a fully functioning democracy based on cabinet government put into practice, not just in theory, and we need a public service based on merit giving frank, fearless and independent advice working in practice, not impartiality just put forward as a nice-sounding theory. So while I support this motion, it only scratches the surface of the cloud of corruption that is lingering over this state. I will be voting in support of the motion today.

Mr ATKINSON (Eastern Metropolitan) (15:52): Mr Somyurek’s presentation today was a rather nervous one to this Parliament, and I think there is good reason for that, because he has put himself in some peril with the information that he has brought to the public in the public interest. He has certainly been before IBAC for other matters which have been well publicised and for which this house has expressed some dismay. However, on this occasion he is being quite courageous in coming forward to highlight some extraordinary transgressions by the Labor Party in the past. And I guess that is really the refuge of the government at the moment—that this is in the past, that this was two elections ago and therefore why should we revisit it now? Well, the fact is if you have somebody who confesses to a serious crime or misdemeanour, then indeed you go back and you investigate it, and you investigate it properly. In my view there is no doubt that this matter was never satisfactorily resolved, again, to the public interest, because apart from anything else the government obfuscated on every occasion every attempt to get to the truth of the misappropriation of funds from this Parliament for political purposes, and that included defying the police in their investigations of this matter, which was probably, in the context of Mr Somyurek’s remarks today, what the Ombudsman had relied on as the next step in the investigation of the red shirts matter.

I have said in this place before that we are the people who make the laws. We sit here in judgement on our community effectively in making laws that we believe they should abide by. We have gone through a particularly severe period with this COVID-19 health challenge in the last two years and made extraordinary demands of our community, backed by our laws, by our judgements. Is it not absolutely right then that we should be the first to follow and abide by those very laws? Is it not right that we should, if there is a police investigation, cooperate fully, if there is an Ombudsman’s investigation, cooperate fully? It is not even a matter of whether it is actually written down in law. The fact is we have a moral responsibility as leaders of the community, as the people who make those laws that we expect them to abide by. We are representatives of a community, and we are there as the gatekeepers of public interest. It is only right that we should be cooperating on every occasion where there are concerns. And integrity is the very lifeblood of democracy. Unless we have integrity in our democratic system, unless we have integrity in our public servants and in our parliaments and in our courts and in our regulatory bodies or scrutiny bodies, then democracy starts to fail. We see a situation where public trust is diminished, and there are serious repercussions for that.

Mr Hayes made some very good points, and they are points that I have made on a couple of occasions in other ways. That is that I am really concerned about the public service here in Victoria. Things like the Crown Casino, toxic waste dumps that explode—these are not unlucky events. These are not mere accidents. These are because of the competence or rather the incompetence of the regulators. And why are they incompetent? Because of political patronage, because of political appointments. And the fact is that, no, it does not go right through the public service, where in fact we have many wonderful Victorians working, but for so many of them their morale is crushed by that very leadership put in place by political patronage. We have lost capacity. We have lost competence. Is it any wonder that major projects go miles over budget? It is because the people who are actually supposed to be providing advice either are pulling back on that advice, not providing fearless advice, or indeed just do not have the competence to actually do the work to scale those projects and to give the government the correct advice. Maybe in some cases it is simply the tin ears of ministers who do not want to hear that advice.

The fact is this motion today is an important motion. When it comes to integrity, when it comes to how this Parliament operates, it is always an important motion. And yes, as President of this place I did go through a whole process that took me all the way to the High Court on behalf of this house. Why? Because again the government obfuscated; the government tried to prevent any investigation of the red shirts deal. We had ministers who refused to answer questions in this place, let alone in the Legislative Assembly, where they claimed exclusive cognisance to try and avoid any further attention on ministers and particularly the leadership in that house.

We had a long journey, and indeed it was a journey that was very much developed by Mr Barber, who did understand the importance of integrity. Indeed one of the things that I have valued about the Greens contribution to this place over an extended period has been the fact that they have been prepared to support any issues that provide scrutiny of government activities. They have been prepared to support reviews. There is only one time that from my point of view they let this house down. But essentially that is part of their core belief. I guess it works for them politically as well. But certainly for Mr Barber it was a genuine process to make sure that there was integrity in government, and the Greens—not just Mr Barber but his Greens colleagues at that time in this house—all supported that proposition. So again I would hope that the Greens party today stays the course and recognises the importance of that scrutiny. We are not dealing with something that is done and dusted. We are not dealing with something that is historic, something that, ‘Oh well, it’s so long ago’. The fact is that these issues are critical today, here and now. The fact is that these issues will be critical here and now and tomorrow and beyond, because they go to the very core of what our Parliament ought to be about, what the behaviour of our members of Parliament ought to be about, what the behaviour of our public service and the performance of our public service ought to be about.

This is a crucial motion, and I urge all of the members of the crossbench to support Mr Somyurek on this occasion. We know the government will not, because again they will continue this obfuscation on this whole issue. Mr Somyurek was courageous today to come to this place, make his statement and put his own position on the line. But in recognition, perhaps after a road to Damascus perhaps because he was concerned even at the very outset of this project, as he suggested, that this should not have happened, he deserves support today.

Sitting suspended 4.02 pm until 4.18 pm.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:18): The Liberal Democrats believe in government transparency and the prudent use of taxpayers money, so we will support the motion referring matters to the Ombudsman regarding the red shirts affair, the independence of the public service and the role of the social media unit.

Some of you might think the red shirts issue is an internal factional matter for the Labor Party. For those of you that think this, I guess the best way to stay out of it is by simply abstaining. But if you take away the noise that comes from various political agendas, I believe there are some outstanding matters that should be addressed. The original whistleblower, who should be applauded for their courage in raising this matter and suffered a great personal toll as a result, has told my staff that there are some serious outstanding issues that must be looked at. I am not going to repeat them all in detail here, because I cannot personally corroborate them, because they were before my time. But suffice to say that they are numerous. This is in no way meant to criticise the Ombudsman’s original investigation, but clearly the best way to get to the bottom of it all is by using the special powers invested in IBAC.

Whilst this is a serious matter, I feel the investigation into the independence of the public service is even more important. The politicisation of the public service is potentially a serious, long-term and corrosive problem. I think all Victorians would prefer that our health departments are managed by health experts and our electricity grid is managed by energy experts, rather than experts in politics. I suspect that some of the failures we experienced during the pandemic might be attributed to political considerations overriding expertise. It should be looked into.

We are also intrigued by the prospect of getting to the bottom of the role of the social media unit. I personally saw how political social media works when I witnessed a protest by construction workers outside the CFMEU back in October last year. I went there because I thought the situation was odd and I did not trust the government or the media to tell the truth about it.

A member: You happened to stumble on it, didn’t you?

Mr LIMBRICK: I did. I spoke to numerous people there and witnessed what was going on. There was no evidence there that people were fake tradies or man-baby Nazis or anything other than construction workers that I could see, and if you doubt this I urge you to watch the live streams of the event. However, immediately after there was a coordinated campaign to discredit these people on social media. The thought bubble was quickly picked up by the mainstream media, and I would like to discover the origins of this campaign and determine if it emanated from a government-funded social media unit. Maybe you do not agree with the aims of these protesters, but perhaps you might agree that producing disinformation is not a public service. It is not too hard to imagine that if this kind of infrastructure is allowed to stay in place, disinformation campaigns could be aimed at people who you agree with at some future date.

I do not know if there has been corrupt conduct, but I do know that there are many questions that deserve to be answered. This is an important motion, and the Liberal Democrats commend it to the house.

Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (16:21): This is a motion that Mr Somyurek has brought to the house largely to his own cost, and for that I think we owe him a debt of gratitude. It obviously was not something that he would have taken on lightly. Nobody wants to dob themselves in, as it were, for such things, but Mr Somyurek has on this occasion decided that in the public interest he will do that. That is a gutsy effort, and that is something that I commend him on.

There is something that I have been deeply concerned about for a long time in this state and in this country, and that is the lack of faith that the general community has in institutions, particularly the Parliament and the government. I have to say in the almost 23 years that I have been in this Parliament I have never seen the esteem so low, the opinion of the electorate so low, of elected members and of their government. Their trust is gone. If you do not believe me, go and have a talk to people in the street, in the milk bar, in the pub, in the fish-and-chip shop—wherever you might want to speak to them. They will tell you, ‘We do not trust our government. We do not trust our politicians’. The number of times I have been told I am a crook because I happen to share the same profession as Daniel Andrews is extraordinary. I have had to point out to them, ‘I am not Daniel Andrews. Say that once more and I’ll sue you’. But people think we are all the same. How about now, today, within the next half-hour, we decide to do something about that. How about today we decide that we are going to allow the accusations that have been made and the allegations that have been made against the government to be properly investigated.

I was appalled, I have to say, at the initial investigation by police, when members of the government, members of Parliament, were told by their leadership not to cooperate with the police. ‘Don’t speak to the police’, they said. I look around the chamber, and there are members here today who were told that and followed those instructions. Little wonder they came up with the ‘nothing to see’ verdict at the end of the day. If the suspects will not cooperate, it is very, very difficult to gain any evidence at all, and of course they were let off, even though the ALP stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, even though the Victorian government took over a million dollars of taxpayers funds to go to the High Court of Australia in an attempt to cover up its misdeeds. All of that, and the police investigation said, ‘Nothing to see here’, because nobody from within the government would cooperate.

Is it any wonder that people are disgusted with their political leadership? Is it any wonder that people think we are all crooks? Is it any wonder that they have no faith in their political leaders? Is it any wonder they have no trust in government? Is it any wonder that that is what they teach their kids: ‘Don’t trust your politicians, don’t believe your politicians’? As I say, I have never seen the public opinion of political leadership in this country, in this state in particular, as low as it is now.

I urge members to do something about that now. Here is an opportunity. It is not an opportunity that we will get very often, but it is an opportunity that we have now. And we must grasp it. We must run with it. Here is a chance to show the people of Victoria that we are not all crooks. Here is an opportunity for us to show the people of Victoria that they can trust us, that they can have faith in at least some of us, that we are not all the same. This is so important in my view—so important. I do not know when we will get another chance like this, I really do not. If this motion is defeated today, we may never get another chance like this. Here is a chance to show the people of this state that we are fair dinkum about our image and about—

Ms Crozier interjected.

Mr FINN: I know. Ms Crozier is pointing the motion at me; I am well aware of that.

Ms Crozier interjected.

Mr FINN: I know the Labor Party are crooks—we know that. What we are trying to find out here is just how crooked they are. Some things are already established. We know that the Victorian government is corrupt—we know that. What we need to know is how corrupt. We need to know how crooked it is and who the main crooks are. Who are the ones who were behind this artifice, this crooked scheme that they came up with, and how many other crooked schemes have they been involved in?

A member: A rort.

Mr FINN: Well, it is more than a rort; I reckon it is corruption. How many other crooked schemes? How many other corrupt schemes have they been involved in over the past eight years—or earlier indeed? This is what we need to know as parliamentarians, as legislators, and this is what the people of Victoria need to know.

Now is the time for us to clean up the act of government in this state, to send a message loud and clear to the four corners of Victoria that the corruption must come to an end. And if we do not take a stand against corruption, against government corruption—if we as members of this Parliament do not take a stand—who will? It is our duty. It is our obligation to take a stand against this corruption. It is something that we must do. This is something that the people of Victoria have been crying out for for years and years and years. Today is our chance. Today is our opportunity to send a message that this is not business as usual and we are not just going to roll over and say, ‘Oh, well, Dan just does that. That’s just what Dan does; we don’t worry about that sort of thing’.

It is about time we did worry about it. It is long overdue that we worried about it. People cannot be allowed to get away with acts that are openly corrupt. They cannot get away with stealing from the public. They cannot get away with that—surely! If we as members of Parliament vote to allow that to happen, then we are not fit to be in this Parliament, we are not fit to have the faith or the confidence of the people of this state. If we as members of Parliament fail in our duty, we should get the hell out of this place. Those who vote for the cover-up, those who vote against this motion, should tender their resignation today. They should tender their resignation today because they will have failed a basic test—a basic test of trust, a basic test of faith of the community.

Mr Ondarchie: They’re not fit to be here.

Mr FINN: They are not fit, as Mr Ondarchie says. They are not fit to be here. So let us grasp this nettle, as painful as it may be. Let us grasp this nettle and let us support this motion so bravely put forth by Mr Somyurek. Let us support this motion. Let us, please, on both sides of the house unite as one and do the right thing. We must do the right thing, and let us do it now.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (16:31): I am not sure I am pleased to speak on this motion, but I must say I have listened to this debate with interest. I am sure Mr Somyurek has too. This has certainly been quite a change from the chorus that he normally would have got from that side of the house. This road to Damascus that Mr Somyurek has found has obviously profoundly affected many of the members in here—Mr Finn in particular, it would seem.

This motion has been described to the media numerous times—in fact even as late as this afternoon—as this being the Parliament referring issues to IBAC. It is not. Let us remember that: it is not. We cannot, we do not have that power and it is not what this motion does. This motion refers a wide range of issues, many that have already been investigated by the Ombudsman, back to the Ombudsman. I have heard as I listened closely to this debate how much faith we hold in the Ombudsman—except not now, except when we do not think that she did her job properly and we are asking her to go back and look at her homework and do it again. That is effectively what we are saying here. We are saying that she did not do enough, that she let people off the hook, that she investigated this and said, ‘No, I can’t see this’. We are also asking in this motion to direct her. We are directing her to share information with IBAC. That is what this motion says. That is ultra vires; we cannot do that, yet everyone seems to have looked over that.

I would say that both IBAC and the Ombudsman are independently fierce, and prior to this debate I thought there was unanimous support for that notion and for that position—that we thought our Ombudsman was fierce, she was formidable. She certainly has not appeared to be a friend of this government, and I speak to her regularly. I speak to her regularly, as I am sure many of you do as well. We know that she could be investigating this. We know that Mr Somyurek could be providing this information to IBAC and to the Ombudsman. I hope, with this road to Damascus moment that he has had during the 18 months that he has not been in this chamber and that time that he has had to reflect on what he has done, he has come back to this chamber having reflected and seen the errors of his ways and he is going to provide this saviour for us all to bring back faith and trust in this Parliament—to bring back faith and trust in the politicians like Mr Finn, who says that people at his milk bar say they do not trust him.

I believe in IBAC and I believe in the Ombudsman, and I think this is a jaded exercise. This is why we have an Ombudsman. She is independent. The office of the Ombudsman and the office of IBAC are absolutely independent. If we believe that there is more corruption for the Ombudsman to investigate, then write to the Ombudsman. Send her that information. She is open to hearing it.

Mr Davis interjected.

Ms PATTEN: I have sat in silence throughout this. I have been respectful. I have listened, and I have been actually quite surprised by the lack of faith that we have in our fiercely independent organisations. I am not supporting this motion. I am also troubled that we would say that our independent organisations are not good enough, that we have to direct them, that it is up to us as politicians to direct those independent organisations. The Ombudsman can self-refer. IBAC is still investigating this; this is a live investigation with IBAC. So I am not going to support this motion. I do not believe that Mr Somyurek is the saviour; he may have been described as a naughty little boy, if I am going to badly misquote the Life of Brian. But I do not think that this motion goes anywhere near this. This motion to me seems to be absolutely self-serving. This has given the opportunity to a chamber that I cannot say had much nice to say about Mr Somyurek in previous months or previous years. I think it is good that Mr Somyurek is finding friends in here and that this motion is supported by some people here, but I do not support this motion.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (16:37): I rise to speak to support Mr Somyurek’s motion today. For me, I believe there is more to be gained from us requesting that the IBAC look into this further and have this inquiry. Obviously I have been in this chamber and have put forward to this government amendments to the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act 1978 only in September. At that time the government gave a commitment that they would look at my amendments to the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act 1978, but I have not heard back. I have requested updates, and I believe that the government should actually look at my amendments to the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act 1978.

Obviously during the IBAC Operation Watts hearings there was much that was brought up that this government could do off their own back without necessarily even requesting recommendations. They could see from the public hearings that there was much this government could do. I gave them some opportunities; I gave them some suggestions as to what they could improve under the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act. They gave assurances that they would go back and have a look, but they have failed me on my request to keep us updated on what they are going to do to improve the Members of Parliament (Standards) Act as well as on some of the issues that have been raised by IBAC under Operation Watts.

I remember Gavin Jennings, when he was here, explaining to me that the red shirts inquiry at the time was very onerous. It was something that he had said to me, as a new member of Parliament, I would never want to go through—as in, ‘Dr Cumming, beware. Make sure that everything that you do has integrity and is transparent, accountable and honest’, which I have done. Even in my mistakes, which have not been illegal, I have made sure that I have listened to my community, come here and requested improvements to actually get us up to the standard of what the community would expect in 2022. It is not necessarily what they expected in 1978.

The Members of Parliament (Standards) Act is very thin. This is all it is. It could be improved. The Local Government Act 2020 actually has more onerous standards for local councillors than we have here in Parliament. I hope that IBAC comes back obviously with recommendations that this Parliament could take on board, and I support Mr Somyurek’s push for further information. It would seem that even the I Cook Foods inquiry needed two goes at it to have more information come forward that community standards could be improved to make sure that they were what the community expects. I commend this motion to the house.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (16:41): I will be brief. This motion comes from a former member of the Labor Party and refers that party to the Ombudsman for an anti-corruption investigation. Mr Somyurek takes the next step on his unlikely redemption arc.

Transparency and anti-corruption measures should be applied consistently and in an unbiased way. They should not be used as a weapon to attack political opponents. Mr Somyurek is not an uninterested party. I have no doubt that this motion is intended as a way of getting back at former colleagues for their role in his expulsion. They fought dirty to oust him, and he is fighting dirty to get back at them—all the more reason for this investigation. The use of corruption exposition as part of factional infighting is yet another form of misconduct evident within the Labor Party. We need to clean this mess up.

We know about some of the use of taxpayer resources for party-political campaigning, we know about some of the Labor branch stacking, we know about some of the public sector stacking and we know about some of the Labor Party’s internal factional power struggles that have destroyed local councils. With new information, some of it from Mr Somyurek himself, it is clear that these behaviours run deep. While the red shirt allegations may be old news, some of the other areas outlined in this motion are very current. The use of taxpayer-funded workers to run Labor’s social media and to manufacture and coordinate online campaigns and Twitter swarms is a very live issue.

Victorian governments of all shades have a long history of misusing taxpayer resources for party-political purposes, but there has never before been a government doing it on such an industrial scale as this one. The accumulated muck within these Augean stables is so high, perhaps the Yarra will need to be diverted through this Parliament and through the government offices and through the politicised public service and the police force in order to cleanse them.

I do not want to dwell any longer on the allegations. They need to be investigated, and that should be obvious to everyone. Instead I will finish with some reflections on MPs in this place that will not support this motion. The Greens—the hypocritical Greens—claim to be a check on government corruption and overreach. But when the rubber hits the road, or perhaps when the coal hits the power station to run all those new air conditioners for renters, it turns out they have no interest in good government. Just like everything else they claim to stand for, the Greens’ only purpose is to posture, not to create change. At the end of the day the Greens are part of the swamp. They have no interest in draining it. They wallow in it while pretending to be offended by the smell.

Voters should be clear: any crossbencher who will not support this motion has no interest in good government; they are in the pocket of the government, hypocrites threading their arguments through the eye of a needle. Some of them may appear to have already tattooed their allegiance to the government all over their bodies. But if anyone is still in any doubt, let today’s vote dispel that, and the voters of Victoria will remember it come the election. I support this referral for an expanded investigation into corruption within this government.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (16:45): What I find quite incredible about the debate that we have had in this chamber so far has been what has been missing in this debate, something at the very core of why this motion has been brought before us that people who want to support this motion refuse to acknowledge or voice, and I think it is really important that it be said. What we have here is a person who is subject to a very serious investigation by IBAC and the Ombudsman bringing a motion before this house seemingly to change the terms of reference for that investigation that he is currently the core subject of, to seemingly diffuse his responsibility in the matter that he is being investigated on. It is so important that we name the context this motion is being debated in here today: to draw the Parliament into an active investigation and seemingly interfere in a process that our integrity bodies are currently undertaking I believe is a misuse of this chamber.

I acknowledge that there are some serious matters raised by some parts of this motion, but this motion, I repeat, must be considered in the context in which it has been raised before this chamber today. And for members of this chamber not to take that context into consideration and not to take an active investigation by IBAC and the Ombudsman that is current into consideration in this debate today I think is improper. It is improper for members to not take that context into consideration.

I have confidence in our integrity agencies. I have confidence that should they see fit, on the evidence presented before them in their investigation, to expand or contract their investigation as need be, they will do so.

Members interjecting.

Dr RATNAM: Can I remind everyone who wants to talk over me and speak at me while I am making my contribution that the investigation has not concluded. We are making judgements on an investigation that has not concluded, and I ask every member who is asking for interference in a current investigation to take into serious regard how they are potentially interfering in a very serious active investigation.

All you have to look at are the few extraneous points that have been added late into this motion about the public service and social media units, which may be warranted. We might consider—not in this context—it warranting investigation, but seemingly it is added to this motion to distract from the reality that, and I repeat with all due respect, someone who is the subject of a very serious investigation is asking this chamber, this Parliament, to help him change the terms of reference under which he is currently being investigated by IBAC and the Ombudsman. Have a good hard think about that, because that is the context that we are debating this motion in here today. And I will not support it, because that process does not have integrity. I have heard members in this chamber wanting to lecture the Greens about integrity, and I reiterate: integrity is at the heart of what we do. It is the reason we raised this matter, the red shirts matter, with the Ombudsman originally. But having integrity means that you apply—

Members interjecting.

The PRESIDENT: Ms Crozier, Mr Finn, you have been warned.

Dr RATNAM: So to those who want to lecture me and the Greens about integrity, I will say this: if you want to have integrity, you have got to have integrity consistently, which means thinking about things deeply, looking at the context in which you are being asked to act and thinking seriously about the process that you are potentially interfering in. And I take that very seriously.

For those who are concerned about matters raised in this motion, who believe they warrant further investigation—and I have heard people crow on about ‘this matter I’ve been concerned about for a long time’—well, bring your own motion then. If someone who is the subject of an active investigation wants to bring a matter before this chamber to say, ‘Change the terms in which I am currently being investigated’, and you are saying, ‘Yes, we’ll do that, but I don’t have the courage to bring my own motion, because I’m so worried about this issue’, then I do not put a lot of stock in your argument. I do not believe that you care about integrity or care about the matters that you seemingly purport to really care about today. For three years I have not seen you bring a motion to investigate those matters more deeply.

Mr Finn: On a point of order, President, you have quite rightly warned me and Ms Crozier for interjecting. I would suggest to you that Dr Ratnam is in fact inviting interjection at the moment by her very personal attacks on members in this house. I think it is appalling. I think it is disgraceful, what she is doing.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order.

Ms Pulford: On a further point of order, President, though it is not unrelated, I have been sitting here for an hour in this debate and Dr Ratnam is the only person who has been shouted over the entire time. I was quite interested in hearing what she had to say, and I think a bit of order and a little less interjecting from the other side would be courteous as a minimum.

The PRESIDENT: I have already ruled there is no point of order. Dr Ratnam to continue and, please, in silence.

Dr RATNAM: In conclusion, I maintain that the Greens have been consistent in our concern about integrity, about transparency, about accountability and about holding the government to account at every possible opportunity. It is the reason we raised the red shirts matters years ago when no-one else was raising those issues. We had the courage to act, and so an investigation took place.

We have a current investigation, and the person who is the subject of that investigation is asking us to change the terms of reference of that investigation that he is currently being investigated under. I do not think that is a proper process. That process does not have integrity for me, and therefore I am not able to support the motion. I reiterate what I have said publicly: that this motion is about continuing factional warfare in the Labor Party, which does need to be resolved for the health of our democracy in this state, but the self-interest, the impact on the subject of a current investigation, cannot be denied in the context of this debate. I think it is a really serious matter that every member in this chamber should consider before they cast their vote on this motion.

Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (16:53): Had I not known that Dr Ratnam had a PhD, I would have extreme doubts about her ability to understand simple facts. Now, there was a highly sensationalised TV program—a TV program that pays people to kidnap people and then to film it, okay? We had a program, then we had a quick reaction. We needed to have a quick reaction. We had a quick reaction from the Attorney-General. We had a quick reaction from this chamber. You have to be seen to be acting. You had to act, and you did. The chamber did the right thing. You moved a motion, a reference to the Ombudsman. The Attorney-General did the right thing, right? Everyone did their job, and I am glad you did your job because there was no way I was ever going to come out of that. Now, at the end of the process, do you know what we have got? We have got the use of electorate officers seen to be corrupt. The red shirts is highly germane to that—nothing else. There are no developer contributions. They have seven years of WhatsApp, seven years of text messages, 20 years of emails, telephone intercepts and my best friend of 25 years taping me, trying to entrap me. What have they got? They have a couple of text messages that staff have gone to pick up envelopes.

Do you know what we did in red shirts? We signed false documents saying that our staff worked in our offices. They worked for the ALP campaigning, right? That flipped an election. False equivalence, right? Everything else was investigated, so I stand before you here as confirmed. I am the only politician in Australia that people can confirm has not been on the take, because they have had seven years of text messages and WhatsApp messages and 20 years of emails.

So it has come down to electorate officers, okay? That is germane to red shirts, don’t you think? It is nothing else. You listened for four days. What else was there? Were there developer contributions? What else was there? There was nothing else—literally nothing else. It is entirely about electorate officers.

Let us be clear about this. You can try to besmirch and throw mud at me as much as you want, but the fact of the matter is I sat there for four days and they had every part of my life. They had every bank account, they had everything about me, they knew everything about me, and all it was at the end of the day was envelopes—electorate officers picking up envelopes. I am not going to go through what red shirts is again.

So look, I feel bad for the people on the other side. You people are critical of the Labor Party; I am not. I am not, because there are 24 other people—we were all comrades in arms, we did this and we were all forced to do this by the leadership. We were forced to do this by the leadership. So I do feel sorry for those people opposite. It is hard, and I feel I am being a little bit selfish because I have decided on principle that I am going to fight this. I am not going to stand for it. But I realise by doing this I am actually compromising them too, and I really do feel sorry for those people. And these people are friends and comrades of those people, so I am not going to judge them. They have to do what they have to do.

But I have got absolutely no respect for these people. What do you think your job is? Is it an ideological game you are having? Is it for the ideological lines they come out and tell you, the dirty Tories? They control nothing. Look at them. They do not have the white cars. They control nothing. Your job as an opposition party is to hold the government to account.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Mr Somyurek, through the Chair, please.

Mr SOMYUREK: It is to hold the government to account. Now, I have been in this chamber with Ms Pennicuik and Mr Barber—and he was ferocious. He would strike terror into the hearts of ministers and government officials, because he was forensic. He would not care about ideology. He knew you have got to hold the government to account, not the Tories that do not control anything. Look at them. They do not control anything. They do not have the white cars; it is the people in power. It does not matter if they are ideological allies. You have got to hold power to account. That is your job. On the pandemic bill you were an absolute disgrace, the three of you.

The PRESIDENT: Through the Chair, please.

Ms Patten interjected.

Mr SOMYUREK: So, President, I have got to say I am not even going to respond to Ms Patten, because that was all about telling me how bad I am. The worse they run me down, the worse they say I acted, the more corrupt they say I am, the more compelling this inquiry is, because IBAC is all about electorate officers. So the worse words they say about me, the more extravagant they are in their language, the more compelling the case for this to go back to IBAC is, to go through the Ombudsman is. And as for misleading, I sent out emails from last Friday clearly saying ‘referral to the Ombudsman’, and parliamentary counsel put this; they are experts on, you know, technicalities. So it was not me just sitting down and writing things up. It was clear what the path of this was going to be. It is 16E(1). Read about it. Do basic research. Do not just get the talking points off the Premier’s office and come here and speak nonsense, Ms Patten. Earn your money; earn your keep. You are a disgrace. You are not acting like an opposition. I am going to be the only opposition in this place I think on the crossbench apart from— (Time expired)

Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, I just want to draw the chamber’s attention to the fact that there may well be a conflict of interest for certain people in voting on this, and I draw attention, by way of example, to Mr Tarlamis, notice of motion 650. He is actually very much subject, and he is to vote—

The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, I am sorry to interrupt, but there is no conflict of interest and no point of order.

House divided on motion:

Motion agreed to.