Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Bills

Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of David Davis:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (14:09): Once again we stand in this chamber debating a bill introduced by the opposition which is more focused on political pointscoring than tangible improvement of integrity. It will come as no surprise to those present in this chamber that the government has already announced that it is supports in principle the recommendations of IBAC’s Operation Clara report. This bill purports to implement those recommendations. IBAC made four recommendations as part of the Operation Clara report, which include amendment of the remuneration guidelines, revision of the lobbyist code of conduct, revision of the code of conduct for directors and amendment of the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017.

This bill has been introduced prematurely. The government is already undertaking the important policy work for improving the framework under which lobbying occurs, and this is not something to be undertaken lightly or hastily. The government agrees that this is highly important work which should not be rushed in any way. To do so may risk unforeseen ramifications and consequences for unexpected targets that are not in the opposition’s sights. It cannot be stressed enough the importance of getting the consultation right and ensuring that the concerns outlined in IBAC’s report are properly addressed to prevent any future investigations and concerns.

According to the bill, its purpose is to:

… amend the Public Administration Act 2004 and the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017 to provide more control over lobbyists.

This is a very odd purpose: no clear detail is provided on the effect of the bill. What is lobbying? The Victorian Government Professional Lobbyist Code of Conduct – that is, the lobbyist code of conduct – defines lobbying activity as:

… any contact (including telephone contact, electronic mail contact, written mail contact, or face to face meetings) with a Government Representative in an effort to influence Government decisionmaking, including the making or amendment of legislation, the development or amendment of a Government policy or program, the awarding of a Government contract or grant or the allocation of funding …

The purpose of the code of conduct is to ensure that the contact between lobbyists and government representatives is conducted in accordance with public expectations of transparency, integrity and honesty. In his second-reading speech Mr Davis opined that some of the recommendations could be implemented administratively but the Andrews government cannot be trusted to implement the required reforms to entrench the required changes. Mr Davis has taken it upon himself as his personal challenge to legislate the recommendations and use his parliamentary position to once again take a shot at the government. One question that leaps off the page is: control by who? The bill fails to identify who is in control. Is the bill suggesting that it is in control itself, or is the identity of the controller the opposition, as they are the ones introducing this bill and phrasing the clauses the way they have interpreted the recommendations of IBAC?

It should be raised in the chamber that in the Operation Clara report IBAC did not express any interest in controlling lobbyists. The overall tone of IBAC’s findings addressed issues of transparency and integrity. This government has already announced that it was also extremely concerned with the issues raised in IBAC’s findings. That is why the government announced that it supports the recommendations of Operation Clara in principle and that it stands ready to make any further necessary changes. I would be remiss if I failed to raise that in Operation Clara IBAC made no adverse findings against any current or past Andrews Labor government ministers or members of Parliament.

Based on the public position the opposition have taken surrounding the findings of this report, one would think that lobbying was an illegal activity. However, the IBAC itself stated in its Operation Clara report that lobbying is a legitimate activity. In fact it states:

Lobbying plays a legitimate role in helping to communicate the views of different sections of the community to decision makers in a democracy.

Of course lobbying must be done in accordance with the law and the code of conduct. We recognise that strict enforcement of policy and legislation is what upholds the reputation of the lobbying practice within community standards. Along with amending the Victorian planning act, this bill seeks to use the Parliament to amend several codes and guidelines. The bill provides for an amendment of the appointment and remuneration guidelines to make a lobbyist ineligible for appointment as a director of a public entity that has any functions that relate to any matter on which the lobbyist has conducted any lobbying activities in the previous 12 months and to require a person making a declaration of private interest under the guidelines to disclose whether they are on the lobbyist register and, if they are, to give details of their clients and the industries in which the person has conducted lobbying activity in the previous 12 months. The bill provides for amendment of the lobbyist code of conduct to prohibit a director of a public entity from conducting any lobbying activities on any matter that relates to the function of a public entity and to require a director of a public entity to comply with integrity requirements, including conflict of interest provisions in relation to any lobbying activities conducted by them or their appointment as a director. This bill also provides for the amendment of the directors code of conduct to prohibit a director of a public entity from conducting any lobbying activities on any matter that relates to the functions of the public entity. It requires a director of a public entity to comply with the integrity requirements, including conflict of interest provisions in relation to any lobbying activities conducted by them prior to their appointment as a director.

At present all members of government boards are required to declare any conflicts of interest and not use their board positions for personal advantage. It is not surprising that the vast majority of members of government boards hold integrity matters in the highest regard, as without the confidence of community we cannot successfully govern at all. The vast majority of members will act in the interests of organisations on whose board they serve and the broader Victorian community. This is just another vehicle for members to serve their constituency and the wider Victorian community.

It is ironic that the opposition seek to introduce a bill on integrity and transparency for political pointscoring. I am not sure they are in a position to be lecturing anybody on integrity. We cannot forget about the opposition’s record when they governed. Several examples come to mind: during the four wasted years of the Baillieu-Napthine government former planning minister Matthew Guy attending $10,000-a-head dinners with property developers, and Mr Davis having other entities pay his personal legal bills. These ultimately cost Victorian taxpayers millions in legal settlements.

Whilst we are on integrity, in the water industry I congratulate the former Minister for Water Lisa Neville for her very thorough reforms to the integrity of and accountability in the water industry as a result of the coalition’s Office of Living Victoria debacle. As minister she instigated reforms of the gifts and hospitality system for directors and employees of water corporations and increased transparency by publishing reports on gifts, gift offers and hospitality on water corporation websites. Any employee of a water corporation and any director of a water corporation, after the changes instituted by former minister Lisa Neville, had to report an offer of a gift and the value of the offer of that gift as well. This was a very, very important change in the integrity space, and it increased the community’s confidence in the leadership of water corporations substantially. Minister Neville, at the time, picked up that portfolio at one of its lowest points after the OLV disaster.

The coalition might not know that water corporation directors are now required to list their interests and report on them twice a year, not dissimilar to this place. This prevents the activity we saw under the Baillieu-Napthine government. The Office of Living Victoria was plagued by scandal and was found to have a number of substantiated allegations of serious breaches of governance and procurement standards. The Age reported on 18 September 2014 on the activities of the Office of Living Victoria:

An Ombudsman’s inquiry last month found the OLV had awarded millions of dollars in contracts – including to former National Party advisers and consultants – with no regard for the government’s procurement rules, and to be rife with undeclared perceived conflicts of interest.

So what we can see here is that it is pretty rich to be pontificating about integrity with a long history – a long, long history. The litany of inappropriate conduct has continued uninterrupted since the opposition lost government: dinners with mobsters, which resulted in the former Leader of the Opposition sensationally referring himself to IBAC; and attempts by the former opposition leader’s chief of staff to have Liberal donors top up his salary, another matter which resulted in the former opposition leader being referred to IBAC. This brief snapshot shows some of the problems, not to mention the irony, with Mr Davis and his colleagues bringing bills to this place on matters relating to integrity and propriety.

The bill should be opposed. It is rushed, it is sloppy and it is work the government has already said it supports but which will be done in the right way. As an outline, this bill seeks to prematurely implement the recommendations of the IBAC at the conclusion of Operation Clara. We have announced our in-principle support for these recommendations. We cannot stand here today and pretend that this is a matter the government is not pursuing methodically and in the appropriate way. This requires the important task of extensive consultation with the people who need to be consulted. We cannot rush legislation through to meet a political agenda. Any legislative reform we introduce to this chamber will be done properly to ensure practical and rigorous debate. We will seek to introduce bills and not play politics.

Samantha RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (14:24): I am happy to make a contribution to the Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023, introduced by Mr Davis. We welcome the opportunity – any opportunity – to strengthen Victoria’s integrity system, and we acknowledge the interests of the opposition as well as the engagement of the entire crossbench on these issues. Already we have seen this combined focus on integrity is bearing fruit. Even today significant improvements to Victoria’s integrity and oversight regime, long called for by independent experts and resisted by the government, are finally occurring, and for this all non-government members from the crossbench and the opposition should take credit. We are doing our jobs to hold the government of the day to account. But as the almost constant stream of investigations and reports emanating from our integrity agencies illustrate, there is much, much more we need to do to improve integrity in Victoria, and we cannot as non-government members lose momentum to achieve more.

This bill seeks to act on the recommendations of Operation Clara, which found that former Victorian Labor minister Theo Theophanous misused his public position on the board of the Victorian Planning Authority, the VPA. The IBAC’s findings were damning. They found that Mr Theophanous improperly lobbied in favour of the Australian Education City consortium’s bid to build a project in East Werribee by failing to declare a conflict of interest or register the AEC as a client on the Victorian Register of Lobbyists. It found that Mr Theophanous tried to advance his private lobbying business by telling clients he had access to staff and information within the VPA, that Mr Theophanous sought payments from the AEC and that Mr Theophanous in lieu of direct payments for his lobbying activities obtained other benefits from the AEC and as special adviser to the AEC, namely a $10,000 political donation and other work carried out for his daughter Kat Theophanous’s successful 2018 campaign as a Labor MP for the state electorate of Northcote. By any reasonable definition the actions of Mr Theophanous constituted corrupt conduct. He showed absolute disdain for the privilege of holding public office, working not for the public good and the public benefit but for his own personal benefit and the benefit of his family, and despite resigning from the board of the VPA he is unrepentant. His actions stank.

It is important to note that the IBAC found that there was no evidence that the current member for Northcote Kat Theophanous was aware of her father’s actions and that she has since denied publicly having any knowledge. But it is also clear that the IBAC found that Kat Theophanous’s 2018 election campaign directly benefited, both in substantial monetary terms and in other in-kind work, from the outcomes of blatant corruption. The Greens strongly believe that it is incumbent on any member who has benefited from corrupt conduct, knowingly or otherwise, once they become aware of such corruption, to publicly condemn it as well as to undertake genuine actions of restitution. This means that if an MP or their campaign receives monetary or in-kind benefits from corruption, at an absolute minimum they repay the value of any ill-gotten benefits. We genuinely expect that all MPs who care about political integrity would do this as a matter of course, but as it appears, it is not the case. We will consider if amendments to the bill today are possible to enforce this.

Moving to what is included in this bill, we agree with Mr Davis that the bill would ensure the four recommendations from Operation Clara are adopted in full. It will amend existing non-statutory codes of conduct to reduce conflicts of interest and prevent lobbyists from exploiting other government positions. I also agree with Mr Davis’s point in his second-reading contribution, though, that implementing these recommendations by passing this bill really only goes to a modest area of what is needed to fix Victoria’s integrity regime. In fact I would go even further and say it only really addresses a modest area of what is needed to fix Victoria’s weak lobbying guidelines.

Last year the Greens introduced a bill to address the substantial problems in lobbying. Our bill goes further than the one that we are debating today and would legislate codes of conduct for lobbyists, ministers and parliamentary secretaries that are publicly available and would introduce penalties for breaches. It would mean that behaviour like Mr Theophanous’s would result in a complete ban from lobbying activity or placement on a watchlist. Our bill would also create a new independent parliamentary integrity commissioner to oversee MP standards and the lobbyist register and require ministerial diaries to be made public. These are the kinds of major public integrity reforms we should be working towards. We will be progressing this bill shortly and will welcome support for our bill from the opposition and the crossbench, but we commend in this case the opposition for bringing this important bill before this chamber.

Matthew BACH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:29): I am pleased to rise also in support of this important bill from Mr Davis, and it has been good to hear contributions from Dr Ratnam and also to hear the government’s response, which is perplexing. Before coming up to the chamber I was watching question time in the other place. Down there I was listening to the Premier continue his appalling attacks upon Mr Redlich, who as you may know wrote a letter to the Presiding Officers whilst still the IBAC Commissioner, a scathing letter with more assertions – even from somebody as senior as that, who Mr Andrews described correctly in the most glowing terms when he was appointed as IBAC Commissioner – of serious corrupt behaviour. And yet Mr Andrews in the other place and Mr Andrews publicly has referred to Mr Redlich in the most derisive and dreadful way. At one point when asked if he had read the letter he said he would not engage –

David Davis: Robert Redlich AM KC, esteemed judge.

Matthew BACH: quite right – in a debate with some bloke who used to run an agency. And yet in this debate I have been gratified to hear that apparently the government has a deep reverence for IBAC, so much so that the changes recommended to legislation in Mr Davis’s bill, which simply will put into law the recommendations of IBAC, are premature. We need more time to ruminate on the excellent recommendations of IBAC, and to do anything but that is simply, to quote the government, ‘done for political pointscoring’.

Given, as Dr Ratnam said, the seriousness of what was put forward in the report from Operation Clara, the allegation that any discussion of these matters is simply political pointscoring does not stack up. We were told by the government that on this side of the house we are ‘not in a position to lecture anybody on matters regarding integrity’ because the member for Bulleen had dinner with somebody six years ago. To be honest, Joh Bjelke-Petersen would be in a position to lecture the government on integrity. Joh Bjelke-Petersen would be in a position to lecture the government on corrupt behaviour. So many members currently seated on the Treasury bench have been named in IBAC reports. The current Premier is the subject of no fewer than four IBAC investigations, and so to hear, delivered with a straight face, the notion that the government takes these matters very seriously and wants to work methodically and slowly through recommendations is, quite frankly, laughable.

It was noted by Mrs Ermacora that on this side of the house we have been in government very little in the last 20 years. Quite right. Sadly, we have only been in government for four years since 1999, but in those four years we put in place the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, something Labor had never done in its long term of office after the Kennett government left in 1999, something the Labor government would never have done. It is only because of the excellent actions of Mr Baillieu as Premier and his team at that time that we even have an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. The relevant member was the then member for Kew Mr McIntosh.

The content of this bill is incredibly straightforward. We had the report arising from Operation Clara, and what was found there was very serious. I will not quote it at length because we have already heard from Dr Ratnam and also my colleague Mr Davis did provide some brief quotations. Here is one section that jumped out to me regarding why it is so important that we put these changes into law and do not simply trust the government to continue apparently a process that we are told is underway, to move forward a lengthy and laborious process to perhaps one day do what the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is asking. Operation Clara found:

… that a former Victorian government minister, Theo Theophanous, improperly lobbied in favour of the proposal on behalf of AEC, including by misusing his position as a member of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Authority (which later became the Victorian Planning Authority). He failed to declare a conflict of interest and to comply with a requirement to register a lobbying client. In lieu of direct payment for his lobbying, he obtained benefits from AEC and its associates in the form of donations to his daughter’s campaign for election to the Victorian Parliament.

Dr Ratnam is right. This is corruption. The member for Northcote in the other place has made her statements. Clearly her campaign benefited from corrupt behaviour. So the idea that we should not want to discuss this in this place, that to do so is simply an exhibition of political pointscoring, I think is knowingly naive. We have four recommendations – just four – and Mr Davis in his contribution has stepped through them at some length. What Mr Davis has done has been to work with parliamentary counsel to shape a straightforward bill that would put those recommendations into law. He noted, and the government also has made this point correctly, that some of these recommendations could be implemented through administrative means. But we – and we know in this our views are shared by many members of the crossbench – do not trust the Andrews Labor government to do that. Who would?

This bill will achieve the task of enshrining IBAC’s four recommendations. What Mr Theophanous did was very serious, and that type of conduct should be stopped in future. I do not see the need, and I will be interested to hear from speakers on the other side of the house what their view is regarding the need for a more lengthy process. If members opposite have had some Damascene conversion to a position of reverence and respect when it comes to IBAC, that is excellent.

Ingrid Stitt interjected.

Matthew BACH: Minister Stitt scoffs, and I will take up her interjection. The fact that –

Ingrid Stitt: On a point of order, Deputy President, I actually sneezed. Dr Bach, I did not scoff.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I am not sure that is a point of order. I will take it as a point of clarification.

Matthew BACH: I will offer my fulsome apology to the minister. I know her to be a truthful person, so I am sure she was not scoffing at the notion that I am somewhat incredulous at the pleasing statements in this debate from those opposite regarding IBAC, an entity that was established of course by the coalition government – the short-lived coalition government, as we have heard. We were only in for four years. This was so important that we got it done. It was asserted by the last speaker for the government that we did not do anything in those four years and that we should have done more. One of the very good things we did was to establish the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

The government now says in this place that it has deep respect for IBAC. The Premier does not, because the former commissioner is ‘some bloke who used to run an agency’. However, if the government is being real with us rather than being disingenuous regarding its respect for IBAC, there is not a need so far as I can see and so far as Mr Davis can see for some lengthy process from a government that of course has the most appalling track record on issues of integrity but also on issues of outright corruption.

This is so important that members of the crossbench should join with us to put in place a straightforward bill that is not an expansive bill. Mr Davis made this plain in his second-reading speech, and Dr Ratnam picked up some of his points. We could go further. We need to go further in other ways to strengthen Victoria’s integrity infrastructure, as Dr Ratnam has said. But in this instance all Mr Davis has done, working with parliamentary counsel, has been to put forward an entirely straightforward bill mirroring the recommendations of IBAC. I commend him for the way that he has done that. I thank the crossbench for their collaborative approach to working with us, and I look forward to the bill’s speedy passage.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:39): I do rise to speak against the Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023. Indeed this is the second time today I am speaking on a Liberal motion or bill in relation to IBAC, although I think I probably will not get quite as big an audience as last time. I would like to think that my arguments were drawing people into the room. I am sure it was nothing to do with question time coming up.

A member: A great way to spend your day, though.

Michael GALEA: Absolutely. A great way to spend the day. I am sure it was all the persuasion of my arguments, never mind.

This is yet another bill from those opposite which demonstrates their overwhelming preoccupation with using this chamber as a forum for their political gamesmanship, for their cheap tricks. It is hard to see the merit in introducing this bill beyond the desire of those opposite to score yet more political points and try and throw up yet more distractions from the week that they are having. You cannot suggest with a straight face that this bill was drafted and introduced with the primary intent of producing positive change to either the Public Administration Act 2004 or the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017. This is not a well considered bill. It is not designed with the intent of enacting a real, positive outcome for the Victorian people. Yet again the Liberals find themselves lacking a meaningful track record of delivering positive outcomes.

I will note that the government has provided in-principle support for the recommendations of the IBAC report on Operation Clara. The government is currently undertaking the policy work, something lacking in this bill, which is required to improve the framework under which lobbying occurs. I am also glad to see that this government, in contrast to the opposition, is not rushing this important work and is taking these recommendations seriously and not simply using them for political gain. I also, in echoing my colleague Ms Ermacora’s comments before, do note our government’s deep respect for IBAC – despite the scoffs or perhaps sneezes of Dr Bach to the contrary.

This government is committed to acting on the recommendations of the Operation Clara report. Whilst the government is doing serious work on this matter, what does this bill claim to do? Its stated purpose is to:

… amend the Public Administration Act 2004 and the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017 to provide more control over lobbyists.

This is a particularly vague aim. It seems to be more concerned with having a catchy name to make it sound like it is taking meaningful action. In the report on Operation Clara IBAC did not claim to be concerned with controlling lobbyists; the matters of transparency and integrity were the focus of that commission. In line with these concerns of IBAC, the government has stated its concerns with the issues raised in the report, and that is why we are committed to making any and all appropriate and necessary changes. Whilst Labor is taking these recommendations seriously, the opposition is chasing its tail, introducing a bill with a stated aim that is not in line with what is called for in the Operation Clara report.

The Liberals established IBAC – and as I have mentioned in previous contributions, I commend them for doing that – in 2011, when they were last in government. Operation Clara made no adverse findings against any current or past Andrews Labor government ministers or MPs, so the Liberals have ignored the priorities of Operation Clara because IBAC has not done what the Liberals wanted to see it do. As IBAC has not made an adverse finding against the Premier, the Liberals have resolved to undermine IBAC both in the public arena and through bills they have introduced. It seems to me that this attitude towards integrity matters is at the heart of this bill.

In the Operation Clara report IBAC stated very clearly that lobbying is a legitimate activity. What is important of course is how lobbying is conducted and how lobbyists act. Any instance of lobbying must be conducted in accordance with the law and with the code of conduct. Ensuring that the law and the code of conduct promote transparency and integrity regarding lobbying is the primary concern.

What the bill does is allow the amendment of the appointment and remuneration guidelines to make a lobbyist ineligible for appointment as a director of a public entity that has any functions that relate to any matter in which the lobbyist has conducted any lobbying activity in the previous 12 months. It requires a person making a declaration of private interest under the guidelines to disclose whether they are on the lobbyist register and, if they are, to give details of the clients and industries the person has conducted lobbying activity for in the previous 12 months. The bill provides for amendment of the lobbyist code of conduct to prohibit a director of a public entity from conducting any lobbying activities on any matter that relates to the functions of the public entity, and it requires the director of a public entity to comply with integrity requirements, including conflict-of-interest provisions relating to any lobbying activities conducted by them prior to their appointment as a director.

The bill also provides for amendment of the directors code of conduct to:

prohibit a director of a public entity from conducting any lobbying activities on any matter –

on a function, that relates to their role in a public entity, and will:

require a director of a public entity to comply with integrity requirements, including conflict of interest provisions, in relation to any lobbying activities conducted by them prior to their appointment as director …

As it stands, all members of government boards are required to declare conflicts of interest and not to use their board positions for personal advantage. There are already important safeguards and regulations within the code of conduct. Overwhelmingly members of government boards take integrity matters very seriously, as they all should. They take the code of conduct very seriously. They act in the interests of organisations on whose boards they serve and, by extension, the broader Victorian community. This bill does not engage in meaningful reforms that approach the recommendations of the Operation Clara report in a considered, effective or practical way.

I do not desire to repeat aspects of contributions that I have already made to numerous previous debates on bills previously submitted by the opposition. However, they are persistent in debating IBAC-related matters, and they do bear repeating. Considering the opposition’s repeated or rather constant assertations that the government is not committed to supporting IBAC, it is again relevant to address these spurious claims and reiterate the government’s demonstrable record of supporting and strengthening IBAC.

This government, the Victorian Andrews Labor government, has committed to acting on all 21 of the Operation Watt recommendations and implementing all of those sweeping recommendations, including establishing a parliamentary integrity commissioner to receive and investigate complaints about possible misconduct by MPs. The commissioner will be armed with robust powers and resources, including the power to recommend sanctions. It also includes work to establish a joint parliamentary ethics committee, comprised of equal numbers of members from the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. It will ban MPs from employing close family members in their electorate offices, as is appropriate, and the ministerial code of conduct will be amended to clarify that ministers must ensure that the public resources made available to them to perform their public duties are not used for party-specific purposes, further to which electorate officer recruitment, management and supervision will be reviewed alongside grant administration to ensure greater transparency and better processes.

The Victorian Andrews Labor government introduced and legislated the Integrity and Accountability Legislation Amendment (Public Interest Disclosures, Oversight and Independence) Act 2019, which expanded and clarified the types of public sector improper conduct that a person can disclose. It also increased the pathways for making disclosures and simplified confidentiality obligations whilst protecting disclosures from legal costs and better enabling them to seek support services. The Victorian government also legislated the Integrity and Accountability Legislation Amendment (A Stronger System) Act 2016, which allowed IBAC to investigate misconduct in public office, lowered IBAC’s investigation threshold, removed the requirement that IBAC has prima facie evidence of a relevant offence from IBAC’s investigation threshold and provided the Auditor-General with follow-the-dollar powers.

In contrast, let us look at the record of those opposite when they have had the chance to govern or even show some leadership on appropriate behaviour. As I did say, the introduction of IBAC in 2011 was a very good thing. But beyond that, with the Baillieu and Napthine governments – outside of that – we had four wasted years, a period in which the then planning minister, Matthew Guy, attended $10,000-a-head dinners with property developers. All the while his close relationship with these developers was almost as notable, almost as notorious, as his absolute abject failure in planning decisions. These were decisions that cost Victorian taxpayers millions of dollars in legal settlements – in Ventnor. It says a lot about the judgement of many in the opposition that they thought Mr Guy was a fit choice to be opposition leader again – and if things go certain ways in the next couple of weeks, maybe we will see him for a third run as well.

A member: Who knows?

Michael GALEA: Who knows. It is hard to say what is going to happen day to day, week to week with that lot. Notwithstanding that, they thought he was a suitable man to be Premier after that, let alone what my colleague Ms Ermacora referred to about other things that were cast aside as ‘Oh, just a dinner with someone.’ Well, it is not just a dinner with someone when it is an alleged mafia figure that you are seeking donations from and having dinner with. That is not just another dinner.

Another former minister – I understand Mr Davis himself – when he was health minister had other entities pay his personal legal bills. This scarcely constitutes a model for appropriate behaviour in a minister or in any member of Parliament. The litany of inappropriate conduct has continued uninterrupted since the opposition lost government. As Ms Ermacora referred to, we have had a dinner with an alleged mobster that resulted in the former opposition leader having to refer himself to IBAC and attempts by the former opposition leader’s chief of staff to have Liberal donors top up his salary, another matter which resulted in the former opposition leader being referred to IBAC. And he is still in this Parliament. These examples demonstrate some of the many, many problems with Mr Davis and his colleagues bringing bills to this place on matters relating to personal propriety.

The Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023 seeks to implement IBAC’s recommendations from Operation Clara. That is a very good purpose. But what it does not do is properly address several prominent parts of that report. It completely disregards the key recommendations, and it approaches those recommendations haphazardly, not in a way designed to improve public confidence or integrity but in a way that is designed to score cheap political points, to grandstand and to try and use IBAC as a political football to suit the needs of the opposition. This bill is rushed, and it fails to provide a considered implementation of those recommendations in the Operation Clara report.

I will reiterate that the Andrews Labor government has already announced its in-principle support for the recommendations. I will repeat, because it does bear repeating: we do, on this side of the chamber, have a deep respect for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the work that it does. Despite what those opposite might claim, we do have that deep respect. We are currently pursuing the matter of how we implement those recommendations out of the Operation Clara report in a methodical, purposeful and considered manner. The government is consulting and will continue to consult with the appropriate people doing the actual work, which has been sorely lacking in this bill and is sorely lacking in most of the bills that the opposition have put forward to this house. The recommendations, as Ms Ermacora also said, have our in-principle support, and we will be continuing that work.

Legislation should not be rushed to score political points. Legislative reform has to be done right, and that is exactly what this government is doing. It has to be done with a focus on achieving the best outcome not for your side of politics but for the people of Victoria. That does not mean putting through a rushed bill that is only going to serve the political interests of one side of politics. It means doing the actual work, doing the grunt work and getting a bill in a proper condition worthy of serving the interests of all our Victorian citizens. This Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023 does not meet those high standards, and for those reasons I do not commend this bill to the house.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (14:53): Today I rise to speak on the amendments put forward by my colleague David Davis to the Public Administration Act 2004 and the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017 to guarantee greater oversight of lobbyists in Victoria. The Operation Clara report makes four clear recommendations regarding our currently undermined and corroded democracy. They illustrate the key vulnerabilities of the lobbyist register maintained by the Department of Premier and Cabinet in Victoria and the governance arrangements at the Victorian Planning Authority.

The recommendations in the Operation Clara report state that there were corrupt actions, and I will outline what the report found. The investigation, as we have clearly outlined, found a failure to register lobbyists, a failure to declare conflicts of interest, the use of one’s position to gain advantage for oneself or another person and the seeking of payments. These sorts of actions are corrupt, and to say it is anything other than corruption is trying to –

David Davis: Cover it up.

Trung LUU: ‘Cover it up’ is another term, thank you, Mr Davis. Again and again the government – those who stand as our opposition – try to prolong things, put things behind firm doors, put up barriers and try to hide their actions.

The Operation Clara report found that former Victorian Labor government minister Theo Theophanous improperly lobbied in favour of the proposal on behalf of the Australian Education City, including by misusing his position as a member of the board of the Metropolitan Planning Authority. As I mentioned, again he used this position to benefit himself or another. He failed to declare his conflict of interest and comply with the requirement to register a lobbying client. Yet again he had clearly failed to register. In lieu of direct payment for his lobbying, he obtained benefit from the AEC and its associates in the form of donations to his daughter’s campaign for election to the Victorian Parliament. This is again obtaining benefits for another person.

These four recommendations in the Operation Clara report, if the bill is successful, will seek to increase the transparency and integrity which this government is lacking. For our democracy we need to have some transparency and integrity for people to have trust in government again. This Labor government has a track record of deception, and again here today it is trying to prolong things and put up barriers and obstacles against what we are trying to do to bring back integrity into the government. There is a lack of transparency and a conflict of interest with its ministers, both current and former. It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Assistant Treasurer was found to have a major conflict of interest in his portfolio. Again, what does the government try to do? They prolong things and put up barriers so that people will not pass judgement that what they are doing is corruption. This Labor government has a track record of attacking our impartial and key democratic institution of IBAC. This independent body has found conflicts of interest and the use of positions to get advantage and seek payment – corrupt actions.

We need to strengthen the trust in IBAC – an institution, I remind this chamber, that was created by this side of the chamber in 2010 by the Baillieu Liberal government. Why? To root out the corruption which was before them. The attacks on Robert Redlich in the past sitting week again was a clear picture of how this government conducts itself on accountability and transparency. And what does the Premier do? He ignores it, pushes it aside and says he does not know anything about it.

The Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023 will, if passed, mean no individual will ever again be allowed to exploit their position on a board of governance, fail to declare conflicts of interest, fail to make proper lobbyist declarations or corruptly solicit donations through exploitation of a government-funded position. What it is is basically sorting out corruption of those on the opposite side, the government. The government needs to act on these recommendations and solidify them in law, instead of dragging its heels in bureaucracy and creating the illusion of democracy while serving to protect one another.

Again I will come back to the recommendations which this bill is all about. They are to ensure registrations are declared and that directors are not able to use their position or interest to obtain advantage for themselves or another person. Again and again the government, on the opposite side to me, try to say that it is not corruption, that they are not the recommendations and that they are acting in accordance with the law, but what we see from the investigations of IBAC is nothing but a true form of corruption.

In closing, I do strongly urge and encourage those sitting in this chamber to look deeply into this bill and how it will protect our democracy, how it will bring back transparency and how it will bring trust back for the people in this government. Adopting the four recommendations from IBAC will prevent the continuation and commission of corruption happening in this government. It is a simple bill. It is only four recommendations. So, again, I do urge especially the crossbenchers to support this so we can root out all the corruption which is brought upon us by this government.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:02): I am pleased to make another contribution on integrity matters on bills moved by Mr Davis – this time the Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023, which seeks to do a number of things in relation to the purported implementation of IBAC’s report into Operation Clara, namely make some amendments to the Public Administration Act 2004, inserting a new subdivision to make some changes to the arrangements with respect to public sector boards and lobbyists and the register of lobbyists, and amendments to the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017, purportedly to implement recommendation 4 from the Operation Clara report.

I will make just some broad comments initially about what things like Operation Clara in general terms are showing us about the operational effectiveness of our integrity system and why we as legislators have important and special responsibilities to ensure that that integrity system is operating effectively. They are going to echo some of the comments that I have made in previous contributions on bills that Mr Davis has moved in relation to amendments that he has sought to make to Victoria’s integrity framework and that we have debated in this chamber in the last few sitting weeks, because I am a very big supporter of having a very strong integrity system in the state of Victoria. I think that ensuring that our public administration is undertaken in a way that is free from serious and systemic corruption is a matter that should be of utmost importance to all who serve in this Parliament and all who believe that public administration must be done in the best interests of the public. The sorts of allegations and findings that have been made over a series of reports from the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, I think, demonstrate that we have a system that is able to do its job effectively in weeding out, uncovering and making findings about specific conduct but also making policy-based recommendations about what action government and the Parliament could be taking to improve public administration in Victoria. Operation Clara is yet another one of those reports.

And what we have seen from the government in response to things like the report of Operation Watts and, in this time, Operation Clara is an acceptance of what IBAC has found and a very clear acknowledgement of the need to implement the recommendations of those reports, even when they may be uncovering matters that people find difficult to read about. But reading about that sort of conduct in a public report following thorough investigation from an appropriately empowered, independent integrity agency I think is a fundamental part of what makes our democracy strong, as does having a government that is willing to do the work to legislate to implement the recommendations. That is exactly what we have here in the state of Victoria. We have a government that has an integrity agency, independent of the government, able to investigate matters which may cause some people connected to public administration in Victoria – and we have seen this over the life of IBAC – feel very uncomfortable about the work that it is doing. But ultimately having those reports done, those findings made and those recommendations put into the public domain strengthens our democracy.

The challenge, then, as legislators is for us to consider bills that come before us and whether we think that they are the right things for us to be passing and whether they will support that integrity framework. If we believe it is important, we have an obligation to ensure that, when considering bills that are before us, we think they are the right thing at that particular point in time to be supporting. That brings me to this bill, because what we have seen, as I have demonstrated, is that the government does accept the recommendations of the Operation Clara report. We have publicly said that we will work in consultation with relevant groups to develop a response and ensure that the concerns outlined in IBAC’s report are properly addressed.

So the question before us is really not one of substance or intent as to the importance of responding to the recommendations but a question of manner or form and whether supporting this bill at this time is the right approach to dealing with these issues. We think it is not, because we think that there does need to be proper and due consideration given, in consultation with relevant parties, to ensure that those four recommendations of the Operation Clara report are adequately and properly implemented. I am certainly concerned that what we have seen from the opposition now over several attempts to propose bills in relation to changes to Victoria’s integrity framework is that they have again and again and again been more interested in creating a political sideshow than getting to the heart of making sure we have a strong integrity framework here in Victoria.

All I can do as a new legislator in this place is look at what we have seen in the last four sitting weeks on the matters in this broad area of the attempts to change Victoria’s integrity framework proposed by those opposite and do an assessment as to whether I think that this one is any good this time round. Unfortunately, I do not think that is the case, because I am concerned that the approach that has been taken by the opposition on these matters is not one about fundamentally strengthening Victoria’s integrity framework, which I think should be the test, but one that is about creating political sideshows. We saw on previous bills that have been produced and inserted into this chamber for debate that people’s natural justice would be denied. Bills were brought forward under the name of strengthening the integrity framework that would have sought to undermine procedural fairness in the conduct of IBAC investigations.

We saw another bill brought forward by Mr Davis which attempted to undermine the role of the Supreme Court under the very important functions that it has in the Victorian constitution to have an unlimited jurisdiction with respect to the matters that come before it. We had in those bills attempts to change our integrity framework in a manner that was so sloppy that he had to move his own amendments to his own bill to clean up some of the mess that he had made. Then most recently attempts have been made to refer those bills off to a parliamentary committee for further investigation. That does not appear to be going particularly well either.

What that demonstrates to me is that there is serious and systemic sloppiness in the approach that Mr Davis is bringing to these matters. It does not fill me with confidence as a legislator who believes that we have a special responsibility with respect to these sorts of matters that supporting this bill at this time in this form is actually going to be the right thing to do in respect of Victoria’s integrity framework, because there have just been too many examples of where it has not. Those examples are not historical examples. Those examples are not from 10 years ago, five years ago; they are from the last four sitting weeks. I have got to say that when this happens again and again and again there appears to be a bit of a pattern, and in that pattern of sloppiness we do not think is where the Parliament should be placing its trust and confidence in making the important changes to our integrity framework that we believe are required.

It has been very clear that the government takes the matters raised in the Operation Clara report very seriously. We are very concerned with the issues that have been raised, particularly with respect to the need to change guidelines with respect to the way lobbyists are regulated under the lobbyists code of conduct, changes that need to be made with respect to the role of public sector board directors engaging in lobbying activities and then commensurately the appointments process for anyone who is a registered lobbyist to those boards, and changes that might be required to the Victorian Planning Authority Act to detail that proceedings for a summary offence may be commenced within the period of three years after the alleged offence in accordance with recommendation 4 of the report.

We do think those are matters that do need to be addressed. The government is undertaking the sorts of consideration and consultation you would expect a government that takes integrity seriously to do and having the necessary members of our public service do that work in consultation as they deem appropriate and, when that work has been done properly, bringing it back to the Parliament for particular consideration and due consideration at that appropriate time so that we can progress these issues that are brought to our attention by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

We will pursue these issues in a methodical and appropriate way. We will get the legislative reform right, and we will not use the integrity system as a way to score political points or change the fundamental nature of our integrity system from one that does do an important job in uncovering serious and systemic corruption in the state of Victoria and makes public its findings and recommendations. Those recommendations are acted upon by a government that takes these issues seriously and are considered by us as legislators in determining whether we think that is the sort of legislative amendment that is required to take our integrity system forward.

The government has in the past demonstrated that it does have both the appetite and the wherewithal to make changes to our integrity system to strengthen the system and to make it work better. Dr Bach talked in his contribution about the role the Baillieu government played in establishing IBAC. He did neglect to go through in any detail the very, very serious amendments that were brought to this place by the former Special Minister of State in 2019, which made voluminous amendments to the integrity system to make sure that it worked properly. He made sure that it could work properly. The consequence of that serious and detailed consideration is a system of integrity in this state which is doing its job properly, free from political interference, free from the sorts of political sideshows that have bedevilled other jurisdictions and capable of producing the sorts of investigations that uncover things like those matters referred to in Operation Clara and providing sensible, concrete recommendations that the government can consider about how to improve the system going forward.

The government takes these matters seriously. It is committed to implementing the recommendations of the Operation Clara report. In doing so, though, we should not be distracted by the attempts to make it a political sideshow, and we should not, frankly, support the attempts – which on all track records in the past have been pretty sloppy – to make changes to the integrity framework in the last few sitting weeks here in the Parliament. We support our integrity system. We want to make it better. We are not sure this is the right way to go.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:17): I move:

That debate on this matter be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.