Wednesday, 1 April 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:20): I move:

That this house –

(1)   notes –

(a) the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment (Follow the Money) Bill 2026 was passed by the Legislative Council on 18 March 2026;

(b) the bill was rejected by the Legislative Assembly on 18 March 2026 at first reading;

(c) the broad community acceptance that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) powers need to be strengthened to ensure that follow-the-money powers are available for IBAC to fully investigate corruption involving government contracts and contractors and subsequent contracts emanating from lead contracts;

(2)   requests that –

(a) the Dispute Resolution Committee meet, consider the rejection of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment (Follow the Money) Bill 2026 and conciliate the disagreement between the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly and report to the houses within 30 days; and

(b) the Clerk of the Legislative Council write to the members appointed to the Dispute Resolution Committee to convey the terms of this resolution.

It is a very straightforward motion. Last sitting week this chamber dealt with the follow the money bill on IBAC, which sought to strengthen IBAC in line with repeated requests by IBAC to provide it with the ability to follow the money to actually enable them to go down deep into contractor and subcontractor levels on particular major projects. This is a weakness that IBAC has. We know that there is massive corruption on building sites – the Big Build sites. We know what Mr Watson SC has said to the Queensland royal commission: that the order of these losses, these corrupt payments, could be between $15,000 million and $30,000 million – $15 billion. That is a huge amount of money. The Big Build sites across the state have almost invariably gone massively over budget. Many have gone over time, but many of them have gone into huge cost overruns. That cost overrun is in part only – not all – due to many of these corrupt payments, which are typical across these sites.

The involvement of bikies and the involvement of other corrupt practices on these sites have got to the stage where the state needs to act. Many of these projects we would support. The North East Link is a project we supported. It began at just a bit over $9 billion, but now the estimates are more than $26 billion, closer to $27 billion. That kind of cost overrun is just extraordinary. Part of it is obviously due to the cost of supplies and input materials and part of it is due to the cost of labour, but some of that cost overrun is directly attributable to corrupt practices on these sites. Those decisions to allow these corrupt practices are the government’s decisions – the Allan Labor government’s decisions – and it is I think very significant for the state to actually get to the bottom of these things. That is why we have called for a royal commission, but that in no way obviates the need for IBAC to have the powers to routinely investigate sites of this type, to routinely investigate these contracts and to get to the bottom of these problems.

This chamber in good faith passed a bill that would have provided those strengthened powers to IBAC in the last sitting week. It is not the first time that this chamber has passed bills strengthening IBAC’s powers which have been summarily rejected by the Assembly. The bill was not even allowed to be introduced into the chamber. It went across on message from here and the first reading was defeated. There was not even a debate, not even a discussion for members in that chamber to see the bill, to have a genuine debate and to propose amendments – what an original idea! – to say ‘We think you’ve missed this’ or ‘You shouldn’t do that’ or ‘You should do something different.’ That is all fine. That is all sensible democratic practice.

All I have said today is deeply factual and very clear. I am now going to step into the zone where some will have a different view, but I think what I am proposing here is very reasonable. Under our constitution, as part of our nature of activities here in Victoria, we have a thing called a Dispute Resolution Committee. That committee, established in the changes that were made by the Bracks government in the period leading up to 2006, has met on three bills over its life. For my sins, I was at each of those meetings, so I am one of the few in the chamber who understands and remembers what the committee actually does. It is true that the committee was fundamentally set up by the Bracks government for the purpose of deciding and dealing with disputes between the chambers and particularly laying out problems where the so-called Council would be recalcitrant or troublesome and would reject government bills summarily or in some high-handed way and would not allow legislation to proceed.

In that sense the Constitution Act 1975 lays out a number of key points. For those who wish to go home and read section 65A, the definitions are there and people can see what is intended by a ‘disputed bill’. All of those are definitions which I am not drawing on today. What I am drawing on is the existence of the committee, established under section 65B, the Dispute Resolution Committee. I will read this for the benefit of the chamber. I am drawing on the fact that the committee is there and the constitution is silent about whether the upper house can propose a question to the committee or request the committee look at some matter or take some step.

Let us be very clear: the upper house has a clear way forward to proposing that the committee look at something, to request that the committee look at something. The words are very carefully phrased here: we cannot compel the committee to do anything, but we can request that the committee look at certain matters. I have asked that the Dispute Resolution Committee meet – I have requested it – consider the rejection of the follow the money bill and conciliate the disagreement between the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly and report to the houses, and that the Clerk write to the members of the Dispute Resolution Committee to convey the terms of the resolution. We cannot compel the committee to do it, but we can ask them to look at this matter, and that committee is sitting there. It has not met in this Parliament, I might add, in breach of section 65B(1) of the Constitution Act, which says:

A Dispute Resolution Committee is to be established as soon as conveniently practicable after the commencement of each Parliament.

The committee has seven members appointed by the lower house and five members appointed by this chamber, so that is 12 members. Those members have been announced and appointed by the chambers, but the committee has never met in this Parliament. I say we can request it to do some work.

Ryan Batchelor: It says ‘established’, it doesn’t say ‘meet’.

David DAVIS: It has conveniently been established – it has not actually done a thing.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: I do not think it has been established to actually act. It has not appointed a chair. The act provides that it cannot meet until the Assembly and the Council have made the appointments. A member of the Dispute Resolution Committee is to be appointed as the committee chair. Each member of the Dispute Resolution Committee is entitled to one vote. In the event of equality of votes, the chair has a casting vote, and then it goes on to other matters.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: You may not care about $15 billion of money squandered corruptly on building sites. You may not care about that, but we know about you and corruption.

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, Acting President, this is a very narrow motion before the Chair which talks about procedures between the Assembly and the Council to resolve disputes. Nothing in the motion references the construction industry or $15 billion.

David DAVIS: Further to the point of order, at 1(c) I moved:

the broad community acceptance that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) powers need to be strengthened to ensure that follow the money powers are available for IBAC to fully investigate corruption involving government contracts and contractors and subsequent contracts emanating from lead contracts.

I would say to you that the Big Build fits squarely within that.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): I actually think you are right. It appears that it does say ‘investigate corruption involving government contracts’.

David DAVIS: Correct.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): So on you go.

David DAVIS: The Dispute Resolution Committee has been quiescent. It has not met. It has not done anything. It has not even elected its chair. Well, I say it can do some work. I will request it to do some work and the chamber will request it to do some work and, in doing so, shine a light on the state government’s attitude through the Assembly, the state government’s failure to even properly examine or consider the matters in the Assembly. I say that the Dispute Resolution Committee is well placed. It is important to note the genesis of the Dispute Resolution Committee.

A member: You were there.

David DAVIS: I was. And one of my colleagues, Philip Davis, wrote a paper.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: He did. He actually wrote a paper, and he said:

However, the underlying assumption seemed to be that this was just reinstating a formal mechanism reflecting the earlier arrangements relating to managers conferences which have fallen into disuse, but were taken to be given a new life under the new constitutional arrangements.

The other changes were much more in focus and it is likely this was because these changes were indeed the most significant reforms since the passage of the Victorian Constitution through the House of Commons in 1855.

It must be noted that the Constitutional Commission, in its consideration, concluded that the Committee of Managers, which had fallen into disuse, was a viable mechanism to resolve disputes or deadlocks on particular Bills between the Houses. It was a solution which was proposed in recognition of the inevitability that future parliaments would comprise of diverse parliamentary representation elected under the new arrangements.

The government at the time accepted the proposal for a Dispute Resolution Committee. It was a recommendation of the commission to ensure that any dispute on a bill between houses could be resolved outside the chambers rather than ping-ponging backwards and forwards – and that is my paraphrasing – bills or other matters.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: I have already laid that out for you. I also want to draw on another paper, produced by Greg Taylor, Victoria’s Parliament and Constitution: The Bracks/Brumby Legacy. He also discussed the Dispute Resolution Committee and how it operates. He talked about the activities prior to 2010:

The first difficulty revealed by the operation of the new system is that no resolution has yet been found for the claim of the Legislative Council that a Bill that has been rejected by it has ceased to be a Bill …

So there is actually still a dispute which has never been formally resolved between the chambers, in my view, properly, but that I make as a separate and side point. The key thing here is that the constitution is silent on the ability of other mechanisms to give a request or an opportunity to the Dispute Resolution Committee. It is my view that our chamber is in a position to refer this matter and to request that the Dispute Resolution Committee meet and look at these matters. The committee would need to get off its tail and elect a chair and then get on and look at these matters in a constructive and thoughtful way. The committee could say that the chambers could set up some sort of conference or other process to look at ways that we could introduce these follow the money sorts of powers. It might be that the Assembly has some suggestions to make.

This committee and the mechanisms that it draws on – the historical mechanisms of managers committees – would be a reasonable way for it to proceed. There is no impediment or constitutional restriction on us sending a matter of this type to the Dispute Resolution Committee. It is true that the deadlock provisions will not apply, but there is nothing to stop us in any way sending a matter to the committee on a request, and that is what I am proposing to do. Given the intransigence of the lower house – the repeated intransigence in Victoria under the Allan Labor government and the Andrews Labor government before them – in dealing with any matter that comes from the Legislative Council, I think this is one way. It is not the only way, but it is certainly a way that we could start to look at some discussions between the chambers. The Dispute Resolution Committee could well be in a position to suggest a way forward and to suggest some sensible steps that could bring these matters forward.

Now, it might be that the Labor people in this chamber and elsewhere do not like this, but they do not like any bill that comes from our chamber – any bill that seeks to reform. The Greens, our parties – the Liberals and Nationals – and others have brought forward bills to try and provide sensible, practical reform. These are not, as was alluded to by a member of the chamber, sideshows; these are actually central to the costs that are being incurred in our economy now. Fifteen billion dollars is an extraordinary amount of money to squander on corrupt payments on building sites – $15 billion – and let the transcript record that Mr Batchelor thought that this was some sort of sideshow, that corruption of this type was not –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: You think it is procedural, do you? But we are aiming at a solution here. We are aiming to actually –

Michael Galea: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Davis is completely misrepresenting Mr Batchelor’s remarks and verballing him. The only sideshow here is Mr Davis himself.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): That is not a point of order. I also might mention to Mr Davis that we allow him a fair bit of latitude in where he speaks from, but he is starting to encroach a long way across, so if he could remain roughly where he is, that would be good.

David DAVIS: I will remain here. It is a very simple motion. It recognises what has actually happened with a number of these bills. It recognises that there is public interest in this and a very big public need for these matters to be dealt with, and it seeks to set up a simple mechanism utilising an existing committee – a committee that has not elected its chair yet. It is time the committee did some sensible work and provided some solutions.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:38): I am very pleased to rise to speak in this debate about procedures within this chamber and between this chamber and the other chamber, which are the precise terms of the motion that Mr Davis himself moved. It is not a broad-ranging motion to debate corruption matters, which we have debated in this chamber at length over the last several sitting weeks. If people want to go and read the Hansard record, they can see the extensive contributions that I have made in this place about those issues in detail for the last several sitting weeks.

The motion today makes it very, very clear that it is an attempt to find a procedural mechanism to keep the private members bill that was moved by the opposition last sitting week somehow in the public consciousness. But of course the motion before us is not what the Liberal Party had intended to be talking about today. We know that earlier in the week they had flagged that they might use this opportunity to talk about other matters, that they might want to use this opportunity to talk about fuel excise. The problem with their plans for the week is that they were disrupted by Labor governments taking action on the fuel crisis. The federal and state Labor governments, through the mechanisms of the national cabinet, reached an agreement to cut in half the fuel excise, delivering real relief immediately to Victorians and Australians at the petrol station. When their grand plan got derailed, the Liberal Party turned their lonely eyes to Mr Davis.

Harriet Shing: Which Mr Davis?

Ryan BATCHELOR: I will get to the Mr Davises involved in the Liberal Party this week in just a moment, Minister Shing, but for now I am talking about David Davis. The Liberal Party turned their lonely eyes to Mr Davis, and he said, ‘I’ve got a cunning plan.’ A plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel, a plan so cunning it could be appointed professor of cunning at Oxford University – for the Blackadder fans out there. What Mr Davis said is, ‘What I can do is I can use this little-known procedure’ – using the dispute resolution procedure in the constitution – ‘to get the dispute committee together and force a resolution on the deadlock between the two houses.’

The only problem was that Mr Davis had not read the Victorian constitution, because if he had read the Victorian constitution, at sections 65A, 65B and 65C he might have noticed a couple of flaws in his plan. I will step through them, if I may, the first being in section 65A of the Victorian Constitution Act 1975. A disputed bill, which is what Mr Davis is claiming the –

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: If you want to interject, Mr Davis, go back to your seat. ‘Disputed bill’ means a bill which has passed the Assembly. This bill did not pass the Assembly, so on the face of the constitution this is not a disputed bill.

David Davis interjected.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): Order! Mr Davis, Mr Batchelor was right. If you are going to interject, which is disorderly, can you do it from your own spot, please.

Ryan BATCHELOR: So it is not a disputed bill. One would surmise that the disputes procedure in the constitution would not apply to it because it is not a disputed bill. There may be eminent scholars out there, and I will come to the other Mr Davis in a moment. There may be eminent scholars out there who think that just because something is said in the constitution, it means a different thing. We can go to a different section of the constitution. We can turn the page and go to section 65C, cunningly titled ‘Dispute Resolution’. This is where it gets tricky. One, it is not a disputed bill. It talks about what the dispute resolution procedures are between the houses as set out in the constitution. It says:

Dispute Resolution

(1)   The Dispute Resolution Committee must seek to reach a Dispute Resolution on a Disputed Bill …

It is not a disputed bill, so there are no powers, there is no function and there is no role for the Dispute Resolution Committee on the terms of the state constitution to do anything contemplated by the motion that Mr Davis has brought before us today. You just have to read the text of the constitution to show that what is being proposed by Mr Davis today is so plainly wrong as to defy any sort of decent interpretation.

In the absence of constitutional text to support the basis of the motion he has brought forward today, Mr Davis turned to another source in his contribution. He said, ‘I will reach for an eminent expert on good governance and administration in the state of Victoria, on doing things properly in the state of Victoria’, and he reached for his former colleague and current president of the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party Philip Davis. I am sure there are many weeks of the year when it may be reasonable to call upon the expertise and eminence of Mr Philip Davis in undertaking matters of administrative thoroughness. This would not be one of them, because what we have seen from the Liberal Party this week is one of the more shambolic episodes in contemporary Victorian politics. Their own members were walking into the Parliament earlier this week and describing the utter shambles of their processes.

The mastermind of the shambles of the Victorian Liberal Party is the expert that Mr Davis is citing as to why his motion is valid and appropriate for the proposed course of action that he seeks. I think that says everything about how little we can take him seriously on these questions and how little we can take the Liberal Party seriously on these questions. They cannot get the basics right. They cannot get the reading of the constitution right. You just have to open the pages and read the act to know that what he is proposing is not within the scope of the Dispute Resolution Committee. Section 65C(1) makes it very, very clear what the process is to resolve disputes between the houses:

The Dispute Resolution Committee must seek to reach a Dispute Resolution on a Disputed Bill …

That is their function, and a disputed bill, under the terms of section 65A, is a bill which has been passed by the Assembly – and this bill was not passed by the Assembly.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Minister Shing, by way of interjection, said that it failed at the first hurdle. It would have been okay if it had failed at the first hurdle, but he has kept running and he has hit every hurdle on the track. Instead of using the time today to perhaps have another debate about the substantive issues that he is trying to get to – just as we had a debate on those substantive issues in the last sitting week and the sitting week before that and the sitting week before that – instead of spending the time of the chamber seeking to go further into the substantive issues of debate, which we on the government have been willing to stand up and engage with the opposition on, Mr Davis has taken us on a procedural frolic to nowhere.

He said to his colleagues, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a great idea. I’ve got a cunning plan.’ The problem is they believed him, and they gave him this slot to talk about a matter of process and procedure instead of focusing on the substance of the issue. I would be absolutely willing on this sitting day – as I was in the last sitting week, the sitting week before that and the sitting week before that – to engage in debate about the substance of the issues that are underlying this procedural motion. But that is not what we have got. We have got a procedural motion that does not even accord with the Victorian constitution. It is a joke.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (14:48): I rise to speak in support of this motion. There has been a lot of chatter about the need to pick up and read the constitution, but I think that has missed the point. Perhaps someone needs to pick up the motion and read the words in the motion, because the motion does not assume that the Dispute Resolution Committee can look at this; it is making a suggestion. That is all this is.

If you want another example of the contemptuous, anti-democratic way this Labor government operates, you really have to look no further than what happened with the bill that is the subject of this motion. It was a bill that was passed convincingly by this chamber. Every non-government member of this chamber supported this bill, but it was promptly shut down as soon as it went to the Legislative Assembly and was sent back here within 20 minutes. The government did not even have the decency to spend a bit of time looking at it and debating it. They did not even have the decency to stand up and debate and say why they did not think it was any good. They just shut it down as soon as it arrived. This is a government that will not allow non-government business time in the Legislative Assembly; it is the only Parliament in the country that does not allow this. That means no private members bills and no documents motions, and they do not allow non-government amendments to be voted on in the Assembly. They self-refer their own orchestrated inquiries to standing committees that they chair and have a government majority on. And that is before we look at things like the joint investigatory committees, which, apart from the Integrity and Oversight Committee, have government chairs and majorities, which leaves this government to mark its own homework.

Despite not having a majority in this place, the government still treats us with the same arrogant disrespect, as exemplified by their failure to follow the standing orders with respect to executive privilege claims on documents orders – and that is if they respond to the documents orders at all. It is made worse by the fact that their own members argue vociferously that they are doing nothing wrong, despite clearly demonstrating they have not actually bothered to read and understand our own standing orders. They do not understand our standing orders, and then they argue against them. The Victorian Parliament has been dubbed the least democratic in the country, and that is a title that this Labor government seems quite proud to retain, because they have shown no interest in fixing any of these issues.

Maybe it should not be a surprise. The most significant corruption scandal ever in this state occurred under this Labor government’s watch, and their response was to pretend they had acted by referring it to our anti-corruption agency, which they knew did not have the power to investigate. IBAC has long called for greater powers to be able to investigate corruption in this state, and the government had the opportunity with this bill to support a modest change that would allow it to follow the money. Every party, as I said, in this place, apart from the government, supported this. But instead of showing even a modicum of respect for the Parliament and for the community, who want this to happen, or providing an alternative bill, which they were welcome to do, they threw a tantrum – we have seen a bit more of it today – and acted as though they were the ones being treated unfairly and refused to engage. You know who has been treated unfairly with all of this behaviour? The Victorian public – they are the ones who lose out when a government lacks integrity and does not take corruption seriously.

There has been $15 billion of public money lost, and that is likely a conservative estimate, while we have more people than ever without a roof over their head. We have teachers and healthcare workers who are asking for a tiny bit more pay so they can pay their rent. There were some of them out there today. Schools are falling apart, being held together with gaffer tape. People are languishing on public dental waiting lists for years and years with permanent pain, missing teeth or rotting teeth. People are skipping meals. Kids are going to school hungry or going without lunch, because they cannot afford it. This government turns around every time we have a suggestion for how they can do it, saying, ‘We don’t have enough money. We can’t afford it’, yet they are willing to turn away from their responsibility to look into what happened to at least $15 billion of public money. Every time Labor says they cannot afford something, look no further than their priorities. They are not interested in rooting out corruption. They are more interested in protecting corporate and industry mates and their own power than protecting the community. But the thing is the community has had enough. They have had enough of a tired government that disrespects the Parliament and in doing so disrespects them.

I think what we are seeing in the debate on this motion is yet another example of this behaviour, but I have a feeling eventually all of this is going to catch up on them. In the meantime it is the Parliament and the public who lose out. We will be supporting this motion today. We understand the purpose of this motion. We agree with the principle in it. I urge all other members in this place to also support the motion.

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (14:53): I thank Dr Mansfield for her contribution to this motion; she actually got it completely right. I thank Mr Davis for his motion. I am very supportive of it, because the way the Legislative Assembly, the Labor government’s plaything, has treated the bill in question is a disgrace. Frankly, you are a disgrace over there for completely missing the point when it comes to open and transparent government. You treat this Parliament – you treat the taxpayers of Victoria – as an absolute plaything. It is a disgrace how you all behave over there, and you have got 15 billion reasons why you should be thrown out in November.

What they did in that whole process in the lower house was not a simple procedural rejection of a bill. They decided in the Assembly, without debate, to reject the view of this house, the view of the experts involved and the view of the Victorian people – how dismissive, how arrogant, how Allan Labor. We debated Mr Mulholland’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission Amendment (Follow the Money) Bill 2026 thoroughly, seriously and in good faith. Members from across the chamber here made their contributions. The bill was passed by this house. It was then transmitted to the Legislative Assembly, where at first reading, without so much as a debate, Labor used its numbers to kill it – no committee consideration, no amendments, literally no engagement whatsoever. Are you so afraid of transparent and open government that that you shut down debate? You run the place like a politburo. They did not even do the bill in this house or Victorians the courtesy of pretending to take it seriously.

Of course I understand that governments reject opposition bills from time to time. That is the nature of politics, and the electoral arithmetic in the lower house makes it a real temptation for Labor. But the way they rejected it tells you everything you need to know about this government’s attitude, not just to Parliament or to this particular bill, but to the principle that underpins it: that Victorians have a right to know where their money goes and that an anti-corruption body should have the power to follow it. This was not some fringe proposal dreamt up by the Liberal Party room – IBAC itself, the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission, the body this Parliament established to be the guardian of public integrity in Victoria, has been asking for these powers since 2017 – not since last year or since the CFMEU scandal, but since 2017. IBAC’s own commissioner has told this Parliament directly that the current laws are too weak, that the commission cannot trace public money beyond government agencies and into the hands of private contractors, subcontractors and the labyrinth of third parties where taxpayer funds ultimately end up. And year after year, this government has said no.

Anthony Whealy KC, the chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, fully supports IBAC’s call for urgent reform and states that Victoria’s watchdog needs wider powers, comparable to what New South Wales ICAC already has. Professor Will Partlett has argued that these amendments would give IBAC the capacity to oversee the misuse of power and money by modern government, including conduct done through private companies and the kind of grey corruption that has become a hallmark of how the Allan Labor government operates. And former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich KC, a man of the highest standing and integrity, who Mr McIntosh a few weeks ago decided to attack rather than listen to, has said it as clearly as anyone:

IBAC needs the power to root out corruption and follow the money – wherever it leads and no matter who is implicated …

Wherever it leads, no matter who is implicated – that is the line this government cannot abide because they know exactly where the money leads: it leads to the CFMEU; it leads to the Big Build worksites, where Geoffrey Watson SC documented organised crime operating in broad daylight, drug distribution, bikie infiltration and billions siphoned away through a system designed to reward Labor’s friends. It leads to the cosy nexus of contracts awarded to mates, appointments of former ministers and MPs to plum positions and the entire apparatus of soft corruption that has become the government’s stock-in-trade. And it leads inevitably to the deep structural entwinement between this Labor government and the union movement, an entwinement so profound that Labor cannot extricate itself, even when it wants to. It leads to Labor. That is why they killed this bill without a word of debate – not because the policy was wrong or because the drafting was flawed, but because they are terrified of where the trail leads.

It is not just us passing a bill who realise this. The Victorian public knows too. A Freshwater Strategy poll found that 74 per cent of Victorian voters support a royal commission into alleged CFMEU and Big Build corruption – 74 per cent, with only 7 per cent opposed. It is a serious consensus. Three-quarters of the population are demanding tougher corruption scrutiny, and the government responds by blocking the very bill that would deliver it. That government is no longer governing in the public interest; it is governing in its own interest.

I made a contribution when this bill was debated in this house, and I spoke then about the quiet contract between a government and the people it serves. Most people are not particularly interested in politics. They want to get on with their lives. They put up with silly games, the stunts and the announcements. They accept that disagreements happen. They are even prepared to forgive poor policy and mistaken decisions. That is the contract. We get on with the business of government and we do not trouble them unduly. But that contract breaks when government conduct spills over into something the public cannot look away from, and what they cannot look away from now is open and undeniable corruption. Billions of dollars lost not to inflation and not to inefficiency but to corruption. What makes it unforgivable is not just the corruption itself but the government’s utter failure to respond with any semblance of integrity. They ignored the warnings. They buried what they could. They deflected and denied. They attacked the messengers. They hamstrung the bodies that could have investigated. They restricted IBAC’s funding, they denied it the powers it asked for and they have certainly never apologised.

This motion matters. It puts on the record that the Legislative Council will not stand by and accept what comment is made by the Legislative Assembly’s refusal to even discuss the strengthening of our anti-corruption framework. We are asking through this motion that the Dispute Resolution Committee do what the Legislative Assembly refused to do: engage with the substance of this bill, consider and debate it and report back to the house within 30 days. That is not an unreasonable ask. In fact given that IBAC has been waiting nine years for these powers, 30 days seems remarkably generous. The Victorian public wants corruption investigated properly, IBAC wants the tools to do it and legal experts want the framework reformed. The crossbench wants action. This Council has already passed the bill. The only obstacle is a Labor government that would rather protect its mates than protect the public purse. That is how corrupt you are. You would prefer to protect your mates than the taxpayers of Victoria. I support this motion, and I urge every member of this house to do the same. If you do not support it, you people on the Labor side over there, you will be held accountable.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:03): I rise to also speak to Mr Davis’s motion 1380. What can I say? I thought it might be a first. I thought it might actually be a first when I heard about what we would be debating today. Mr Davis, possibly for the first time in 30 years in this place, was actually going to bring something to the chamber that was relevant to the lives of Victorians. He was actually going to talk about the fuel excise and give us an opportunity to talk about what is being done, what can be done and what further can be done to support Victorians in this cost-of-living crisis. Then I look in the notice paper today and what do I see? I see it is Wednesday 1 April and Mr Davis once again, the perennial April fool, has done it again. He had an opportunity to actually talk about something of vital importance to this state right now that people are talking about in the streets. People are talking to me about this important issue. I am sure if you went out and spoke to people, Mr Davis, you would find that they were talking about that too.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: If you do not think that the fuel excise is important, Mrs McArthur, I think you should be going and telling that to your constituents. But it is important.

I thought, ‘Knock me down with a feather, Mr Davis has come up with something that we can all actually talk about that’s actually going to make a difference, on a Wednesday, to Victorian people.’ And what do we have? No, we have a procedural motion that he cannot even get right.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Michael GALEA: He cannot even get it right, Mrs McArthur, no matter how valiantly you try and defend him. I congratulate you on your win over the weekend. Mr Davis probably was not too pleased with that, but I congratulate you nonetheless.

Bev McArthur: Mr Davis and I are very good friends.

Michael GALEA: I am sure you are very ambitious for him, Mrs McArthur.

A member interjected.

Michael GALEA: Yes, which Mr Davis is your friend, actually? ‘Which Mr Davis?’ we should ask.

Bev McArthur: My colleague here in this red chamber.

Michael GALEA: Very good – not the other one. We will clarify that: not the other Mr Davis. We will take note of that. The present Mr Davis’s constitutional expert, the other Mr Davis, as Mr Batchelor outlined, did a not quite so thorough job of ensuring the integrity of an internal election process. Notwithstanding that, we are here today to talk about a very narrow motion and indeed the cunning plan, as my colleague referred to, that Mr Davis has come up with. He has spun a frolic and he did a feint towards, ‘Let’s actually do something that people might care about.’ Let us talk about the fact that the federal government has halved the fuel excise in this country. Maybe let us talk about how the state government has fulfilled its duty in making public transport free. That is what we thought you wanted to talk about, but no. The date on the front of the notice paper is Wednesday 1 April, and the April fool himself has put this before us today to talk about a narrow procedural motion that, despite its narrowness, fits squarely outside the constitution, as Mr Batchelor extensively went through in his remarks: section 65A, section 65B –

Bev McArthur: The only people with cunning here in this place are you lot.

Michael GALEA: I am not sure you meant it that way, Mrs McArthur.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Michael GALEA: I am enjoying your second contribution, Mrs McArthur. But the sections of the constitution clearly outline what constitutes a disputed bill, and through Mr Davis’s interjections in Mr Batchelor’s speech he admitted that what he is trying to do sits outside of that scope. He admitted that it is not a disputed bill under section 65A of the constitution, thereby taking away any and all argument he has under section 65C of the constitution.

In relation to Dr Mansfield’s remarks, who implored us to be democratic, I literally do not see what is democratic about taking the constitution that governs how we operate in this Parliament – we have all been elected here by the will of the people, just as the Legislative Assembly has been elected by the will of the people, to come in here, and our job is to enact laws, to debate and to conduct motions – and saying, ‘That’s nice. We’re going to do something different.’ If we wanted to have a debate about a sensible change to the constitution, that would be quite something else. That would be something that you could consider proposing. But that is not what you have come here with today. You have come here with a vague sense of a plan – a cunning plan, as it were – to look at this and say, ‘Let’s just throw things around and bombastically say we can do this. I’ve spoken to my friend Phil Davis. He says we can do this. Let’s give it a whirl.’ That is not the way to conduct governance in this state. He said that a few times. Mr Davis himself acknowledged that he was –

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I am going to take up the interjection from Mr Batchelor and remind Mrs McArthur that we are in the Legislative Council. We are not in the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Council has been through a process, and the Legislative Assembly has been through its process.

Enver Erdogan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Mr McGowan is your expert. Yes. You are quite right, Minister Erdogan. Mr McGowan will no doubt be able to advise you on the ins and outs of the Legislative Assembly as he continues his quest to join them and to abandon us all here. I am not sure why you would possibly want to abandon you lot on those benches over there, but some of them might have a few ideas – those of you who are left anyway, and indeed you are one of them, Mrs McArthur.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: Acting President, I do enjoy a provoked interjection, but I am actually struggling because I am trying to listen to too many of them at once. What I will say is –

Jacinta Ermacora: On a point of order, Acting President – I think you know what I am going to say – I cannot really hear this powerful contribution from Mr Galea. I am really trying to listen to it.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): It is a little lively in the chamber. It is very entertaining for everyone watching, but I ask Mr Galea to continue with a little less activity.

Michael GALEA: I concede I may have brought it somewhat on myself. But it does come back to a very straightforward and simple point: that Mr Davis has done what Mr Davis does best, and that is come into this place with a concept of a plan, a thought, an idea. Maybe he has written some things out himself and said, ‘Let’s run with this’, consulted his wise and earnest colleagues, who were probably – I do not know if, Mr Davis, you were speaking to them and distracted them from other things that they perhaps should have been focusing on in the past week. But the fact remains that it is squarely outside of the constitution, what Mr Davis is trying to do. Now, good on him for trying. That is all well and good. But to suggest that by not supporting this there is some anti-democratic bent to it is completely misguided and wrong, because to follow the constitution is actually the democratic thing to do – to follow the rules and procedures of the chamber that we have been elected to.

As I said, if you want to bring a reform proposal on the constitution, you are free to do so. Mr Davis, I note that, as you said in your contribution, you actually were in this place 23 years ago when the current constitution act was put into place, and I believe you asked several questions in committee stage alongside your then colleague in the chamber the other Mr Davis, as well. So you had plenty of opportunity to be deeply across this. And indeed, pursuant to your own remarks – you and Ms Lovell, I think, are the two members here who were here at that time – you should be all over this. The fact that you have come here today with this motion suggests to me that you know that you are pushing the proverbial hurdle up the hill –

Ryan Batchelor: It would be easier if he had a straight face.

Michael GALEA: It would be easier if he had a straight face. But look, it is a valiant attempt. Certainly, I think those of us newer members can all learn quite a great deal from you, Mr Davis, and not necessarily much of it productive but certainly much of it fascinating, as it comes through to the manipulation of parliamentary processes. But even for your good self, this is simply outside the scope of the constitution, and you know it.

What disappoints me is that I fell for it. I absolutely fell for it. I thought Mr Davis was going to bring up a discussion motion about the fuel excise. It would have been a terrific opportunity to talk about how Victorians in my electorate, in all members’ electorates, are doing it tough, are facing anxiety and uncertainty. Whilst this government is getting on with the job, Mr Davis, probably from his time as the minister, is not used to knowing what it is like to be a government that does its job and does so in a fast manner. But this government is getting on with it, making those reforms. We have seen through national cabinet the agreed halving of the fuel excise. We have seen, through a bill that will be in this chamber tomorrow, further reforms to ensure the state has appropriate oversight of our fuel supply. Indeed, free public transport as well is one additional measure that we can do to support the cost of living of Victorians, whilst also going a little bit further to ease the pressure on the fuel pump. We could have been talking about those things. Indeed, I think many Victorians would be expecting us to.

Bev McArthur: On a point of order, Acting President, on the point of relevance. Mr Galea, what has fuel excise got to do with $15 billion worth of corruption? $15 billion of corruption is what we are talking about here, not fuel excise.

Michael GALEA: On a point of order, Acting President, Mrs McArthur was actually being irrelevant to the motion in her own point of order, but I am being relevant to the original motion that we should have been debating today.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Your time has expired, and what a fitting way to finish – a point of order on a point of order. Thank you. It was a wideranging debate.

 Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (15:14): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s fabulous motion that he has brought to this chamber, and I thank him for it, because we know the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment (Follow the Money) Bill 2026 was passed by the Legislative Council on 18 March, and it was a bill that was in my name. It was a bill that was supported by the entire chamber besides the 15 members of the government. That does not happen very often, and we know the views of Victorians on this particular issue, which is the $15 billion that has been rorted from Victorian taxpayers on construction sites and fleeced for the criminal underworld and bikies.

This is a very serious matter. We know that about 75 per cent of Victorians want a royal commission and about the same want an expansion of IBAC’s remit to follow the money to contractors to be able to get to the bottom of the deeply rooted corruption that has gone on in this state. Mr Batchelor and Mr Galea kept saying that if we want to bring a substantial motion on it, they will deal with that and debate it. But every time we do, the government votes against it. The government voted against it in this chamber, and then it was brought to the Legislative Assembly, and the government did not even give it an opportunity to be debated before it shut it down completely.

Bev McArthur: Running scared, they are.

Evan MULHOLLAND: Exactly. And guess who the chief culprit running scared was? It was the Premier, who did not even turn up to a vote. She was too cowardly to turn up to a vote to expand IBAC’s remit, something we know even her own colleagues want her to do. Her own colleagues want her to call a royal commission into corruption. Seventy-five per cent of Victorians want a royal commission into union corruption because of the $15 billion that has been rorted. And who stood idly by? This Premier did nothing when reports were put to her in 2020, in 2022 and in 2023, and then she has the gall to keep repeating that she only found out about it when the 60 Minutes story came out. We know that is bollocks. We know the Premier was repeatedly warned. I had to fight the government in court, in VCAT, to get documents from a 2023 progress report for the North East Link, which showed the CFMEU was kicking surveyors off the North East Link Program and was doing a go-slow on the assembly of tunnel-boring machines to establish industrial dominance. This is the kind of thing that costs taxpayers money. Have a look at what happened on the Hurstbridge rail line site. You had absolute gang warfare. You had women being abused on that site and on several other sites. Yet this government are happy with the settings as they are. They are happy to sit there and say, ‘Nothing to see here. We don’t need greater powers. We don’t need an expansion of IBAC. We don’t need a royal commission.’ Well, yes, we do. We do need a royal commission and we do need an expansion of IBAC’s powers to get to the bottom of the systemic corruption on our Big Build sites. $15 billion is a lot of money. It could have paid for 130,000 new teachers, police officers or nurses, and it is an enormous amount of money in a crime crisis. I think Victorians deserve to know what has happened.

The Premier Jacinta Allan, the most unpopular state Premier in the country –

Bev McArthur interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: She actually wrote to IBAC. Labor colleagues must have been shaking their heads when they saw the Premier bandying about a letter from IBAC, only to have IBAC release a statement days later saying that they did receive a referral and they actually responded that they had no powers to investigate that letter. Did the Premier release that letter or come back to the media or the chamber and say, ‘I’m going to bring in a bill to expand IBAC’s remit, given I wrote to them asking them to investigate and they said they couldn’t because they didn’t have the legislative power and they would very much like that’? No. The Premier, when she had an opportunity to act, decided to do nothing. Then some probably harebrained media adviser in the Premier’s private office said, ‘I reckon you should bandy about this letter to IBAC that you wrote in 2024. I reckon that’s a really, really good idea. I reckon that’s a really good idea because it shows that you acted back then’ – only for IBAC to come out publicly and declare what they wrote back to the Premier. How embarrassing for the Premier to be exposed for misleading Victorians, because she said that she acted by doing it, but they quite clearly responded saying they could not and they would very much like the power to do so.

We have seen, as Mr Davis has discussed, that the constitution is silent on bills from the Council to the Assembly, and we are requesting that the Dispute Resolution Committee meet. I am wondering why the Premier was not there at that vote in the Assembly. Was it because of the things that her colleagues were saying during that sitting week, like that a challenge will become inevitable if poor polling continues? Another colleague said there is genuine discontent among ministers and factional powerbrokers.

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, Acting President, we have had a wideranging debate, but Mr Mulholland is straying even further away from the procedural issues that bedevil Mr Davis’s motion. I do not think that this content is relevant to that motion.

Evan MULHOLLAND: On the point of order, Acting President, I was connecting it to the blocking of the debate in the Assembly in the Premier’s absence. I would also note that Mr Batchelor went on a wide spray about the Liberal Party.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): Reflecting on the debate that we have had, there have been a few names that have been referred to on both sides of the chamber, so I ask Mr Mulholland to continue.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I would love to continue because I was trying to explain why the Premier was absent from that debate. We know that several of her colleagues were not pleased last sitting week. They said that she was politically vulnerable and that:

Jacinta calling MPs scallywags is f – -ing rude, why would you poke the bear?

Maybe she was at the Shark Fin Inn for a dinner and then a lunch.

Harriet Shing: On a point of order, Acting President, I am just wondering whether there is any kind of food and wine festival that involves the Shark Fin Inn followed by the Lobster Cave.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Gaelle Broad): I will take that as an interjection rather than a point of order.

Evan MULHOLLAND: That will not be the last time Minister Shing leaves this chamber if Mr McIntosh gets his way, because we know on the other side there are plenty of disputes, whether it be Ms Watt versus Mr Erdogan or Mr Batchelor versus Mr Berger. The infighting and disputes amongst Labor Party members probably go a long way to explaining why the Premier did not have the guts to turn up in the Legislative Assembly on this bill and explain herself – explain why she did not release the letter from IBAC to her explaining that they did not have the power and would like the power to expand IBAC’s remit. I think this is a fantastic motion by Mr Davis. It very much should be supported because we need to get this bill passed.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:24): Wow! What an interesting day it is today on this wacky Wednesday. We always love to be in the chamber when we are debating some kind of motion. I rise to make a contribution on this motion in Mr Davis’s name, which is basically about a bill that was passed by this chamber but then went to the Assembly and was not passed by the Assembly. The motion then calls on the Dispute Resolution Committee to meet to consider the rejection of the bill, to meet and resolve the deadlock. That all sounds amazing, but Mr Davis I guess missed some important steps in this process – in fact the whole process – about what is actually set down here. The constitution actually sets out the role and the functions of the Dispute Resolution Committee. If Mr Davis or perhaps one of his junior advisers might have looked at the landing page for the Dispute Resolution Committee on the Victorian Parliament website, it would have alerted them to the fact that, effectively:

The Committee works to resolve disputes between the two Houses, where a bill has passed the Legislative Assembly but failed to pass the Legislative Council.

So again, it cannot come from here and go there. It has to come from –

Bev McArthur: It doesn’t say that. It’s silent.

Sonja TERPSTRA: It does. It has to. I am going to go to the constitution in a moment, Mrs McArthur. And it is kind of handy that I am a lawyer, because I can read law. It is disappointing that we have to. It is opposition business day, so you can fill your slots with whatever you want to fill them with, but you cannot rewrite the laws, and you cannot rewrite history. The constitution is an important document. It is not just the vibe of the thing, as Dennis Denuto says in The Castle. It is not just the vibe of the thing, it is actually a very important document, because the genesis of all the things we are talking about today is the constitution. But again, I will refer to the landing page, on the Victorian Parliament website, for the Dispute Resolution Committee. Mr Davis, if you took 3 seconds to have a look at this, you would have found that what you are proposing today would not pass any muster at all – and it does not; it quite clearly does not. We heard from Mr Mulholland all the usual stuff about IBAC, the CFMEU, blah, blah, blah. It is a distraction from the fact that this is ill-conceived and was always fatally flawed. It cannot go anywhere, because it has no power to do so. So again, I refer to the Dispute Resolution Committee landing page:

The Committee works to resolve disputes between the two Houses, where a bill has passed the Legislative Assembly but failed to pass the Legislative Council.

And then it goes on to say:

If the Committee cannot reach a resolution, or does not meet, the bill will become a deadlocked.

It can be reintroduced to the Parliament.

Again, it states that:

The Committee was established under the Constitution Act 1975.

I know my colleagues Mr Batchelor and Mr Galea have also referred to these provisions: 65A, 65B, 65C and 65D. But again, a cursory look at the Constitution Act 1975 and 65A, the definitions section, would have pointed us to a pretty important thing, which I have just mentioned in terms of the Dispute Resolution Committee. It says:

Disputed Bill means a Bill which has passed the Assembly and having been transmitted to and received by the Council not less than 2 months before the end of the session has not been passed by the Council within 2 months after the Bill is so transmitted, either without amendment or with such amendments only as may be agreed to by both the Assembly and the Council.

And it goes on. It is crystal clear – there can be no other reading of this provision – that the bill has to have passed the Assembly and come up here; it cannot go the other way. Mr Davis, you can shake your head as much as you like, and we can talk about all these other things that have no application to this debate. We heard the Greens lecturing us about how arrogant we are, but we are not, because we are just relying on the law here. I do not know – on anyone’s reading, law, democracy. And let us not forget that the members in the other place, in the Assembly, where government is formed, considered your bill and rejected it. If you do not like the outcome, then take it up with the Victorian electorate, because they keep re-electing Labor governments. In the Assembly there is a thumping majority that considered your bill and resoundingly rejected it, so this motion and your bill should have died a natural death in that chamber. There is no way that it can be resurrected through a crazy motion in this chamber.

Also, Mr Davis, I know you have been around here a long time, and this is what I find really interesting and fascinating, because you should know better. Someone has very handily provided me a copy of the Hansard from, I believe, 27 March 2003, and you were a member in this chamber back then. I do believe that when the Constitution (Parliamentary Reform) Bill 2003 was being debated you did not ask any questions in committee on this provision at all – you did not. I do not know – do you have a different recollection? It seems to me this whole entire debate is about trying to rewrite history and having recollections of things that actually never existed in the first place. Mr Davis, someone very handily provided me with the Hansard, and I have looked through –

A member: The Premier’s office, was it?

Sonja TERPSTRA: No, no, no, it was not. I have looked through and read all of this. I do not need the Premier’s private office to help me; I can read things for myself. But clearly, when you look through these things, Mr Davis, you had ample opportunity in committee at that time to ask questions about this provision and clarify whether a bill could have a genesis in this chamber, go down to the Assembly and then come back up. You did not ask those questions, Mr Davis. So again, I refer to the facts. And again, the lecturing from the Greens we find really interesting, because we actually have a leg to stand on on something, like the law, the constitution. Simply then saying to us that we are just being arrogant I find quite astounding. We are being arrogant because we are relying on the constitution? That is completely breathtaking.

Again, the constitution is actually very clear on this. Mr Davis, you have wasted a slot for your party on your day by again not doing your homework. Your homework gets an F on the report card today, Mr Davis, because again, as my colleagues remarked upon earlier, what you could have done is actually talk about fuel excise, cost of living, all sorts of things that are really important to Victorians right now – Victorians who are looking for cost-of-living relief, not some spurious, ill-fated motion. The constitution and trying to argue it is the vibe of the thing and Dennis Denuto having another run at it – it was always fatally flawed and a complete waste of this slot. To try and support this motion is a stunt. It is an ill-fated stunt, and it will just reflect poorly on you. What would you do if you were ever in government? These sorts of stunts – that show you cannot even understand the legislation, the constitution and the role and function of parliamentary committees – are actually breathtaking, particularly for someone who has been in this Parliament for decades. You have been in this Parliament for decades, Mr Davis, and even you are laughing because you know you have no excuse. You have no excuse whatsoever.

Again, this motion is incredibly ill-fated and flawed. It is another example of trying to scramble around wanting to fill a slot which we were originally advised would be a motion about cost of living and the fuel excise. But again, at the last minute they try and scramble away and get something where they can try and get some hits on the government. It is an F on the report card for the dog eating your homework, Mr Davis. You have not done any homework, or this is a really lousy attempt at some kind of homework. We know that trying to get a resolution up through here to get it to the dispute committee cannot occur. The constitution prevents it.

This motion is just another ridiculous stunt. It is really embarrassing. I do not know what else can be said on this other than to say again that the fact that you think you can come into this chamber and get this chamber and this Parliament to act on something that is so fatally flawed and ridiculous says a lot about you if you were to ever get in government. I would recommend, Mr Davis – perhaps through you, Acting President – a thorough review of the Constitution Act, in particular sections 65A, 65B, 65C and 65D, and also perhaps a review of the parliamentary committees landing page for the Dispute Resolution Committee. That clearly spells out why things can and cannot occur. The government is not supporting this motion. Obviously it is ridiculous and spurious and a complete waste of time, but it is your wont. If you want to waste a slot on your day, go right ahead.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:34): Acting President, you have hit me at a point of surprise because I was actually expecting a member of the opposition to perhaps follow Ms Terpstra on the motion. I am always delighted to get up and make a contribution on motions from Mr Davis, as has been my custom and practice over the last many, many years now. But I was expecting of course to follow perhaps one of your colleagues over on the other side, Mr Davis. But that is all right; here we go. I am going to make a contribution on this motion regarding the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment (Follow the Money) Bill 2026. I think the position of the government has been made abundantly clear many, many times by my colleagues, and I too join them in saying that we do not support this motion, because it is of course another really desperate motion that does not speak to the lived realities of the community out there. In the conversations that I am having, people that come to my door and hit up my social media and all the rest of it are talking to me about bread-and-butter issues of supporting their families and the cost-of-living crisis. They are talking to me about what we are doing. They are talking to us about filling up their cars. They are talking about filling up their trucks. They are talking about the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables into the future. That is what people are talking about right here in Melbourne, particularly right across the northern suburbs – and folks out there in regional Victoria.

Interestingly I have spent the last month talking up EV cars. I know that some have a deadset feeling against EV cars, but I will tell you what is happening; they are the conversations that are filling me up.

Nick McGowan: Do you have one?

Sheena WATT: I do not have an EV car.

A member: Why not?

Sheena WATT: Because of the ancient, desperate behaviours of some body corporates that exist out there. That is why I do not have an EV car, and I have done my utmost to convince them that things need to change. That is why I am really proud to be part of a government that is taking on body corporates and smashing the way that body corporates are behaving. I am completely off track, because I could go on about how good EV cars are for quite some time. I could talk about the range of them and how they have now been included in the new free trade agreement with Europe, but instead I am going to go back to the motion, because I have got some things to talk about.

We are discussing IBAC, and it is extraordinarily serious, there is no denying it. I cannot stand up here in good conscience and discuss a motion that, frankly, wastes the chamber’s time.

Bev McArthur: Why are you speaking on it, then?

Sheena WATT: I was not, in good faith, expecting to speak – I will be honest with the chamber – because there was a slot there for the opposition to speak and for members of the crossbench to speak. And do you know what happened? None put their hand up to speak on their own motion. That is why I am here discussing the important elements of anti-corruption efforts here in our state.

Bev McArthur: Our case was so good we didn’t need any more debate.

Sheena WATT: That is not true. We know that with the bill that we debated not too long ago right here we discussed the ins and outs of IBAC, its powers and all of the efforts that the government has taken to address corruption in this state, and we know that IBAC already possesses the necessary jurisdiction over contractors who are performing public functions. That is clear. That has been heard by members of the team over here, and I will repeat it. What we thought was that the bill before us was supposed to broaden IBAC’s reach, to follow the money. But what I heard and what I saw was the actual text of the bill contained no specific references to money, funds or dollars whatsoever. What in fact was proposed was granting IBAC powers identical to those of the Auditor-General regarding the scrutiny of contracts and subcontracts. I think we need to be clear here in this chamber about what those powers are actually for. The Auditor-General is empowered to conduct performance audits – that is their job – with forensic processes used to determine if government agencies are hitting their targets and whether they are managing resources efficiently and strictly adhering to the law. That is the role of the Auditor-General, and can I thank them for the really diligent role that they have continued to play over the entirety of this term. Almost every sitting week we have the good fortune of receiving some of their reports.

You see, attempting to force the very different functions of two very different bodies together is simply not the right way to manage our integrity system. When it comes to addressing criminal behaviour and specific types of industry misconduct, organisations like Victoria Police, frankly, are better equipped for the task. It is precisely why our government has ensured that Victoria Police and the Labour Hire Authority have the specific and very detailed authorities required to do their jobs effectively. We are already seeing the tangible results of these powers being put into action. To date, Victoria Police have laid more than 70 criminal charges, while the Labour Hire Authority has moved to cancel 147 licences.

I see that beyond enforcement we have taken some very structural steps by initiating an independent review and committing to every single one of the recommendations, as discussed, and we have implemented some really strict new legislation to prevent bikies and other criminal elements from being on our worksites. We have also established that secure, protected pathway for complaints backed by criminal penalties for anyone that threatens whistleblowers. These changes are actively working, and we are seeing the culture on our worksites improve every day because of them.

It is important to remember that the Integrity and Oversight Committee specifically recommended that the exceptional circumstance test for public examinations be kept in place. I know that there are members here in this chamber that serve on the Integrity and Oversight Committee. I thank them for their work, including the work of the committee, in determining that retaining this specific requirement is essential when you weigh the inherent risks involved in public proceedings. We have to acknowledge that IBAC does possess extraordinary powers that even exceed those of a criminal court, yet they come with fewer protections for those involved. That does require some element of discussion here, and I am glad to make a contribution on that. In examinations a witness’s lawyer is restricted from speaking and there is no opportunity for cross-examination to provide a right of reply, exhibits are not shared with witnesses or their legal counsel in advance and the threshold for making findings of guilt is much lower than what is required for a criminal trial.

This bill failed to address the necessary safeguards to protect witness welfare or to prevent the prejudice of ongoing criminal proceedings. IBAC itself has previously highlighted that maintaining the confidentiality of its investigations is vital to ensure that they are not compromised. I recall this came up time and time again in contributions in the original bill debate, and that is probably why I am repeating it here. The decision of the chamber stands, and I do recognise that was sent to our friends in the Legislative Assembly.

I think that what we are seeing is kind of extraordinary. I could talk all day about the powers of IBAC to conduct investigations, but briefly, underpinning all of that is the fact that Vic Police have the power and authority to conduct investigations, and anyone with any knowledge of criminal behaviour on worksites is recommended strongly to speak to Victoria Police or any one of those bodies that have been set up as a result of the review that we conducted and called upon very rapidly after hearing about some really tragic circumstances. The truth is that IBAC is valued and respected by this government, and year on year we have seen an increase in IBAC’s base funding. When we came to government in 2014 it was $31.5 million; it has gone up and up, and this year it now sits at $65.6 million. That is evidence straight there that this government is committed to IBAC and what they do. I will leave my remarks there but just say that I am deeply disappointed to see that we did not receive more contributions from the opposition on a motion that is theirs about a bill that they proposed to have committed and cared about so deeply. So I encourage others – (Time expired)

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (15:44): The only thing that is left to say is I am the fifth Labor MP in a row to speak on this motion. The only conclusion is that you are utterly ashamed of your own motion. You cannot get enough speakers to fill your own time. We will debate it, but you cannot debate your own motion. You cannot follow through on your own agenda, erroneous as it is. It is deeply embarrassing, but we will do our bit. We have filled your roster on something you should have filled your roster on. Obviously something has gone wrong. There are more arguments going on, there are disputes going on and there is tension at play. It is very, very embarrassing for your side, I would say.

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:45): This is a very straightforward motion. It is a motion that deals with the fact that the Assembly continues to refuse to deal with bills that properly come from this chamber, bills that are very important for the community. We heard from the government suggestions that we had not filled the slots. We had three speakers, and we are today trying to make sure that there is sufficient time for Mr Ettershank to do his work.

I also want to make the point that the government tried to argue that this was not about things that are material to the community. That is complete nonsense. The $15 billion that has been squandered corruptly on Big Build sites – the minimum $15 billion, as Dr Mansfield made very clear – is a very important matter of public concern. It is money that could be spent on hospitals and schools and roads, a whole range of things, but the money has been squandered corruptly on Big Build sites. We are seeking to remedy that by tightening the law and making sure that it is dealt with properly.

I notice that the IBAC Commissioner has today renewed her comments about the need for follow-the-money powers, saying:

When a public body pays a contractor who hires subcontractors, and so on, the public funds move further down the line and into a gap – where any alleged corrupt conduct which occurs, is no longer within IBAC’s remit to investigate …

Since 2016, IBAC has publicly advocated for ‘follow the dollar’ powers, which would provide IBAC the ability to follow the public funds through subcontractor arrangements …

This is a key point. It is central to what needs to occur here. There are other reforms needed by IBAC, but this is an important one.

What we are suggesting today is a very simple step. We request that the Dispute Resolution Committee meet and conciliate – that is the word I have used deliberately – between the chambers. It is true that bills coming from the Assembly follow a particular deadlock provision, a dispute provision. But I have argued in this case that a bill coming from our chamber which has been shabbily treated in the Assembly is a bill that the Dispute Resolution Committee could quite properly conciliate over. There is nothing in the constitution that prevents that. It is silent on this matter. It is very clear that it could conciliate.

That would fit into the mode of previous management committees on which the Dispute Resolution Committee was explicitly founded by the Constitution Commission Victoria when it recommended changes to the constitution. It was accepted by the then Bracks government and legislated in this chamber. Old-fashioned management committees used to discuss things between the chambers and set up mechanisms to conciliate arrangements across the chambers. That is what I am proposing here. It is new and it is fair, and it does give an additional lever to the chamber. I urge people to support it. It is a modest and thoughtful way to deal with this issue.

Motion agreed to.