Wednesday, 25 May 2022

Integrity agency funding

Mr DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:28): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes that:

(a) Ms Harriet Shing MLC, chair of the Integrity and Oversight Committee, has now twice intervened to block testimony to the Integrity and Oversight Committee from independent officers of the Parliament, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) Commissioner, the Honourable Robert Redlich AM, QC, and the Victorian Ombudsman, Ms Deborah Glass OBE;

(b) this occurred concurrently with the Victorian Ombudsman’s inquiry into the politicisation of the Victorian public service and with the following three IBAC corruption investigations into the Andrews Labor government:

(i) Operation Watts;

(ii) Operation Sandon;

(iii) Operation Richmond;

(c) the Andrews Labor government has failed to adequately fund IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman, with funding increases for IBAC being conditional on the completion of a review of their office and the Victorian Ombudsman only being provided with an additional $700 000 through a one-off Treasurer’s advance; and

(2) calls on the government to provide an immediate injection of funds for IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman to ensure a lack of funding does not prevent the completion of these inquiries prior to the November 2022 state election.

This is a very serious matter that has developed over this recent period, and it is clear that the state government has turned the tap off on IBAC funding. It has screwed IBAC and the Ombudsman down, and frankly this is occurring deliberately and in a strategic sense to slow down the investigations of these independent agencies. They have caused grief for the government. They have caused very serious grief for the government, and the government is now in a position where its most senior person, the Premier, has actually been interviewed twice at least, and possibly a third time—we cannot quite get the truth of the matter on that out of the Premier, but at least twice—by the IBAC. We know that in fact the IBAC has undertaken those interviews. The Premier has not been clear about whether it is him as a witness or whether he is a person of greater interest than that. It is not actually clear—nobody knows. The importance of this is that the community needs to have confidence in where the Premier is and where these matters progress from here.

We need to make sure that funding is not a problem for IBAC or the Ombudsman. They made commentary on their websites and in their annual reports in recent times about the issues here. When you read budget paper 3 you can see—it is explicit in fact—that the completion of a review of the IBAC office is a precursor to any funding increase. This is actually the government holding the IBAC Commissioner in a very difficult position, a position where he will not get the funding increase unless the review is completed to the satisfaction of the government. I think that this is concerning on a number of levels. The independence of the Commissioner can be threatened by these matters, and certainly there is an appearance of the government holding this funding over the head of the Ombudsman and the IBAC Commissioner.

Budget paper 3 is a very interesting document, but it does make it clear that the funding for the IBAC is dependent on the review. It is actually instructive, I think, to look at the actual Appropriation (Parliament 2022–2023) Bill 2022 and to look at the schedule. What it shows is that the IBAC had $53 294 000 appropriated in 2021–22, and $54 896 000 is proposed to be appropriated in the appropriation of Parliament bill at schedule 1 on page 12—for those who want to go and look at it. It is clear that that is not a sufficient increase in funding to enable the IBAC to do the work that it needs to do. So there is no guarantee that the IBAC will get the money; there is no guarantee at all. In fact the Treasurer or the Premier or the cabinet may hold that money over the IBAC as a threat—as an indication that, ‘Unless you play ball, unless you do what you are told, unless you wind back your investigations, unless you curtail your activities, you will not get the funding that you seek’.

The same is true and the risk is the same and the appearance of the same issue can occur with the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman, as we have said in the motion, is undertaking a number of inquiries, assisting the IBAC with Operation Watts but also undertaking an inquiry into the politicisation of the public service, a very important inquiry that comes from a reference from this chamber. But when you look at schedule 1 again and see the department of the Victorian Ombudsman on page 13 of schedule 1 of the appropriation of Parliament bill, you see that the 2021–22 funding was $19 550 000 and $20 177 000 is proposed. That is a modest increase proposed for the Ombudsman in funding, and indeed we believe that there should be a greater increase. There should be $10 million provided as a clear injection into the IBAC, and there should be a $2 million immediate injection into the Ombudsman. That is our proposal, and that is what we have said publicly.

Now, the government is talking about a potential $7 million for the IBAC, and that has not been provided to the IBAC. If the government is sincere in providing those additional funds, it would in fact be prepared to put that in the budget now. I do not know the exact reason that the government has not put this clear funding in the budget, in the actual schedule—not in budget paper 3 but the actual appropriated amount in the budget schedule. It is clear that there is not a substantial increase for the Ombudsman proposed in the government’s own bill. So these are important points to understand.

I also want to make the point today that without that increase in funding there is a risk that both of these agencies and a number of their inquiries will in fact be in a position where they will not be able to complete all of their work in the timescale and the schedule that I think the community would want. They have their own timescales and they have their own schedules—they are independent agencies—but if they are starved of funding, if the money is turned off, it slows down their capacity to do the work at the pace they should be able to do the work. I say that providing them with sufficient funding enables them to work at the fastest pace their inquiries allow and indeed is likely to see more of the inquiries completed or partially completed prior to the state election in November this year.

The concern, frankly, is with the government turning off the taps, with the government clamping down on the independent scrutiny agencies, there will be less of these reports able to be completed or even partially completed—interim reports—prior to the state election. The truth is that the state government is deeply embarrassed by these matters. The state government does not want these reports in the public domain before the state election. The fear is that with this clamping down on these agencies people will not see the extent of the corruption in this government—the corruption in the senior levels of the government, potentially with the Premier. The Premier will not be honest or direct with these matters.

Ms Shing says, ‘I intervened at the inquiry because that’s what I’m required to do’. This is simply not right. The IBAC Commissioner is more than capable of knowing the line, of knowing whether his responses at an inquiry in an open hearing would in some way compromise an investigation or in some way lay out a matter that he does not want to or ought not to discuss. He is very experienced in this. With respect to the members of that committee, I would argue he is more experienced than most of them. I do not believe it should have been a judgement for Ms Shing to close down these inquiries.

This is a protection racket that is being run at the inquiry. Ms Shing is doing that for the purposes of assisting the government and assisting the Premier. She is blocking questions that are inconvenient or awkward—questions that go to government corruption, questions that Ms Shing does not want exposed in the public domain. I say that the government ought to have not acted in this way through Ms Shing. The government ought to have allowed those questions to proceed. It is clear that the IBAC Commissioner wanted those questions to proceed. I believe it is very unfortunate that that process happened there. I think the committee is diminished by this process. There needs to be a very significant rethink by the government and an openness and a preparedness to open itself up to scrutiny in a wider framework. I have confidence in the IBAC Commissioner that he will know where the line is on these matters.

I also have confidence in the Ombudsman. She is a very experienced woman and understands the matters around the legislation here. We saw the government, with the red shirts inquiry, take the Ombudsman all the way to the High Court and spend a million dollars of public money to block the investigation. The truth is that in that investigation into the red shirts the government did not cooperate with the investigation. Members of this house at the time did not fully cooperate. Members of the other house, claiming some spurious exclusive cognisance argument, did not cooperate. In fact the government did not even cooperate with the police on that red shirts inquiry. Talk about Labor corruption through and through—not cooperating with the police. The truth is if the police come knocking, your job is to give them an honest answer and to assist them with their inquiries in full, and that is what the Labor Party members should have done. That is not what they did. There was a cover-up, and the cover-up continues through this process. Operation Watts is clearly a very inconvenient inquiry for this government. The Ombudsman and the IBAC are working on that. It is looking at Labor corruption through and through.

And if you look at the Sandon inquiry—I mean, this is obviously a very difficult inquiry that has seen some very significant public evidence, and there is involvement of councillors and others—nobody should resile or step back from that. But we know the Premier has been taken to that inquiry. We know the Premier has had to answer questions at that inquiry. We do not know if he is merely a witness to matters or whether he is a person of deep interest to that inquiry. We know he has a long background and history with Mr Woodman. We know that they are mates going back into the past. We know that there are a whole series of questions around that. So you wonder why a Labor MP might intervene to close down questioning about a matter that is near to that inquiry, that is touching matters that are not necessarily about witness evidence, and not provide the IBAC Commissioner with the elbow room to explain his own actions. And he was clearly wanting to explain his own actions. I say I trust the IBAC Commissioner to make those decisions rather than a government MP that has the interests of the government and wants to close down difficult questions about corruption at the heart of Labor. A cover-up of corruption at the heart of Labor—that is what we are talking about here. And we are talking about a corruption inquiry when it comes to Richmond. We do not know whether the Premier has visited the Richmond inquiry or not—he will not tell us. And we do not know the nature of the Watts inquiry and any evidence that he has given there; we do not know exactly what the nature of his evidence was there. But either way, the Integrity and Oversight Committee has got a very important role, and the questioning should not have been summarily closed down in the way that it was. I make that point very clearly up-front, and I make the point about the funding.

Frankly, what is going on here is Labor is attacking independent agencies. It wants to close them down. It wants to slow their inquiries. It wants to nobble these independent agencies, and it wants to do that for its own political interests. It is corrupt at its core—that is really what is going on here—and this cover-up is corrupt to the core as well. I say that what is required here is the light and the brightness of openness and transparency, and I say they need to be properly funded to do their work. I say that the Labor members of the committee should not seek to nobble those independent agencies, and I say that the people of Victoria deserve to see these reports, they deserve to have honest answers about them and they deserve to see them in a timely way, not in a way that is crimped, where the government has crammed the tap right off, taken the money away and made it hard for the agencies to do all the work that they need to do in the time they need to do it.

So let us let the agencies get on with it. Let us give them the money that they need, the $10 million straight into the IBAC to let it go and the $2 million straight into the Ombudsman to let them go. Long-term reform is a separate point, but at the moment they need to be able to proceed and at the moment Labor members and the government will not let them do that. I say it is corrupt at its core, and I say that this is a very simple and straightforward motion for the house to support.

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (11:44): There are a number of things that I want to address in relation to Mr Davis’s contribution here today and a number of things which Mr Davis has inferred and implied but is too gutless to say. Mr Davis stood up last sitting week and made a number of claims around the functions and the powers of the Integrity and Oversight Committee as they are set out in the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. He did so in relation to a report that he had not read, that he did not understand, that he had no regard for and that he made absolutely no comment about when he was on his feet. He did so in order to use that opportunity to comment on a report that in fact has nothing to do with what we are here to talk about today but which was effectively shoehorned by Mr Davis into a neat political narrative.

And the very tabling of this particular motion, the moving of this particular motion by Mr Davis, achieves the very end that he set out to achieve—a cheap political point which has no regard for the reality of the legislative framework within which we operate. I would ask that Mr Davis have a look at the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. I asked him to do that last sitting week. He has clearly not had any regard for the framework within which committees operate. I would ask Mr Davis on the question of funding to have a look at what was said by the Ombudsman and by the IBAC Commissioner when they appeared at hearings of the Integrity and Oversight Committee and addressed their satisfaction with funding as it has been allocated in the 2022–23 budget.

I would in fact invite Mr Davis to amend the embarrassing components of his motion which ignore or are in fact completely unaware of the funding announcements which have been confirmed in the budget, which have been confirmed, as the Ombudsman indicated in the public hearings, in writing from the Treasurer. Mr Davis has missed the point entirely in relation to the substance of the Integrity and Oversight Committee’s framework to conduct reviews on the systems and frameworks that exist for integrity agencies, and he has missed the point entirely because he sought to make an altogether different and altogether grubbier point. It was not those opposite who voted in 2020 for including ‘serious misconduct in public office’ as part of the remit of the IBAC. Those opposite, for all of their posturing around integrity, opposed those measures. They did not want to see the very sunlight that Mr Davis now claims to be so important.

In relation to the review of the performance of integrity agencies for the 2020–21 period, I remind Mr Davis and indeed anybody else who is interested in understanding the way in which parliamentary committees operate to have a look at the statement that I issued, which is on the parliamentary committees website, and which I hope Mr Davis has read, to understand the fundamentals of the rules within which we as a committee operate. It is absolutely essential that integrity agencies be equipped to do their work without interference or the perception of interference from any member of Parliament or indeed any committee. Section 7(2) of the Parliamentary Committees Act makes this abundantly clear. This is not to gag or to nobble or to crimp or to engage in any other creative verb that Mr Davis might come up with in this place because he would rather read a thesaurus than the way in which the act operates; this is about making sure that the boundaries and frameworks that exist between the necessary independence, the inviolable independence, of integrity agencies is not compromised or seen to be compromised by the way in which the parliamentary committees operate. This is not new, nor is it unique to parliamentary committees such as the Integrity and Oversight Committee. It applies to all parliamentary committees. It applied to the committee when a predecessor from the coalition chaired this particular committee. It applies now.

A member interjected.

Ms SHING: Well, that is right. That previous chair operated under the framework which Mr Davis now claims is being used as an excuse by which to shut down hearings or indeed nobble the democratic process. Let us recharacterise that if we can. Mr Davis in fact, if we follow his reasoning through to its logical conclusion, would like to see a parliamentary committee being empowered to reach into the investigation inquiry or review of decisions of integrity agencies. That is what Mr Davis is saying. That is nothing short of a complete abrogation by those opposite of any responsibility for integrity in the state. That speaks volumes. That says that this yet again is another cheap political stunt to achieve the ends of a quick grab, a headline, a random tweet or allegations that I am corrupt or indeed that this government is corrupt.

One of the things that I think we need to be very, very aware of is that integrity agencies must be able to do what they do without interference, whether actual interference or perceived interference. These are obligations that I take extremely seriously as chair of this committee. It might be open to argue that in fact I am vulnerable to being influenced in the way in which I do my work. It would be someone who does not know me particularly well who would make such a claim. It would be somebody who perhaps might wish to pay lip service to the way in which women in particular in positions of elected responsibility are able to speak their own minds. That in and of itself might speak to the fact that the Liberal Party has got a lot to learn about basic respect for the independence and independent thought of women, given how wiped out they were in the federal election and given how wiped out they have made women and diversity within their own ranks, such that they have all but eclipsed any divergent views from within their own group in favour of the blokes who sit on their front bench and the blokes who occupy their party rooms and the blokes who are using this as an opportunity to distract from the shambolic, dilapidated state of their own party. What better way than to shift the saga and the opprobrium—now you are seeking to shut me down. What a curious paradox.

Mr Davis: On a point of order, President, it is quite a narrow motion on IBAC and on the matters around the Ombudsman. We are out into much wider terrain now.

The PRESIDENT: Ms Shing has been very relevant to the motion.

Ms SHING: I just want to pick up on what Mr Davis has said, because what he has effectively just done now is demonstrate the relevance of the standing orders, the very system within which we as a chamber must operate to comply with the rules. Mr Davis has just stood up and said this is a very narrow motion and asked that the member be drawn back to the motion itself. Is that not, Mr Davis, an embarrassing acknowledgement that the work of the Parliament, and by extension parliamentary committees, must be confined to the terms within which they operate? You have just snookered yourself, Mr Davis, and you know you have snookered yourself, because what you are saying is that certain things cannot be discussed within the operation of particular motions because they fall foul of the standing orders.

What a joke to come here and seek to intervene on a question of relevance when it is precisely this rationale which has guided the application of section 7(2) of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003. What an embarrassment that in seeking to make sure that the front page is vacated of the shambolic internal trauma of your own party not only are you not in a position to understand the way in which the act works but you are also, correspondingly and curiously, in a position to raise an argument under the standing orders in this very place that I am overstepping the mark and not being relevant. Mr Davis, you have just illustrated precisely through your point of order that in fact these rules are relevant and important.

Section 7(2) has a role to play. Section 7(2) requires and demands that integrity agencies be in a position to undertake their work without interference. The IBAC Commissioner, the Ombudsman, the Victorian Inspectorate and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner are well within their rights, as they should be, to say whatever they would like in relation to the matters that are within their remit. Parliamentary committees must operate within the framework which exists in the Parliamentary Committees Act. It is a curious thing that Mr Davis has fallen on his own sword here today, and I hope that this is not a learning opportunity lost on Mr Davis when we look at the fact that he has conveniently shoehorned this idea of truth into an allegation that funding has not been provided in the terms sought, which it has, in relation to the fact that the Parliamentary Committees Act has not been applied as it should.

Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (11:54): I rise to speak on the opposition’s motion before the house today that essentially centres around the chair of the Integrity and Oversight Committee intervening to block testimony to the IOC from certain heads of integrity agencies. The motion goes on to state that:

(c) the Andrews Labor government has failed to adequately fund IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman …

and that it:

(2) calls on the government to provide an immediate injection of funds for IBAC and the Victorian Ombudsman to ensure a lack of funding does not prevent the completion of … inquiries …

As a member of the IOC, can I begin by saying that the members of the IOC from both sides of the chamber and both houses, and importantly the office of the secretariat, do an incredible job under intense scrutiny and often within incredibly tight time frames. I have seen this firsthand, and with the team effort in collaboration the IOC has maintained a high level of effectiveness and ethics.

In relation to the first point within the motion—that the chair of the IOC shut down the IBAC Commissioner—this followed questions posed by opposition members that may have resulted in answers provided by the IBAC Commissioner that may have been in breach of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, specifically section 7. Within this section there was a significant risk of a breach of the provision because the questioning of the IBAC Commissioner in a public hearing was about specific matters, including possibly naming witnesses and complainants that are currently under the investigation of IBAC or another legal process. Such questioning and discussions involve a significant risk of breaching section 7 of the Parliamentary Committees Act by potentially investigating a matter currently being investigated by IBAC; reviewing findings, recommendations, determinations or other decisions regarding a particular IBAC investigation; disclosing or facilitating the disclosure of any information which may prejudice a criminal investigation, an IBAC investigation or a criminal or any other criminal proceeding; and breaching a secrecy or confidentiality provision in any act. During the public hearing it became apparent that the risk of a breach was heightened, as the public hearings were broadcast live and being recorded by Hansard. It is for those reasons that we do not support this portion of the opposition’s motion.

In terms of the funding for the integrity agencies, in February 2021 we opposed a similar motion by the opposition regarding funding, and the reason for this was that if any of the integrity agencies have concerns with the adequacy of current and future funding then they have the means to bring this to the attention of the Integrity and Oversight Committee. It is then up to the committee to address these concerns in a way in which they see fit and respond accordingly.

As a member of the committee, like I said, I can say that it is my belief that the IOC and the chair are fulfilling and discharging their duties in accordance with their responsibilities. Given these reasons, we will not be supporting this motion.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (11:57): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s motion and the need for transparent and democratic processes at the joint Integrity and Oversight Committee. The Integrity and Oversight Committee exists to do exactly what the name suggests: it is meant to uphold principles of integrity and accountability and acts as an oversight mechanism of independent investigatory bodies. It therefore came as quite a shock when the chair of that committee, Ms Shing, made orders to cut the feed when questions were asked about the Premier’s involvement in IBAC. This was the first chance for the public to gain some answers around why the Premier was—

Ms Shing interjected.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE: President, could I please make my contribution in silence? I am respectful to everybody else in this chamber, and I do not interject.

Members interjecting.

Ms BURNETT-WAKE: I am allowed to make my contribution.

Ms Shing: The rules are important, aren’t they?

Ms BURNETT-WAKE: They are important. They are, Ms Shing. So, as I was saying, it was the first chance for the public to gain some answers around why the Premier had been attending IBAC for secret hearings. We know that he has been questioned behind closed doors at least twice, but what we do not know is whether he is under investigation or whether he is attending in a witness capacity. When a member of the opposition asked why the Premier was privately examined as part of Operation Watts and Operation Sandon, Ms Shing immediately became defensive. She ordered the live feed to be cut. Actions such as this can only lead an observer to conclude it was done to prevent the public from hearing the line of questioning.

This was not the first time Ms Shing had intervened in questioning either. She had earlier shut down anti-corruption commissioner Robert Redlich when, in response to a question from a Liberal MP, he appeared to be referring to the Premier’s appearance before IBAC. Now, her reasoning for doing so was that questions could not be asked about a current investigation. Mr Redlich has since hit back and said that there is nothing in the statute governing the committee that precludes members asking and IBAC representatives answering questions unless the disclosure of information concerning the witness’s welfare would prejudice the IBAC investigation. According to Mr Redlich—

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.