Tuesday, 22 September 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (23:08): I rise to speak on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. Like many others have said in their contributions, this bill has been a long time coming. As this government has been in power for 12 years now, we have seen a gradual erosion in the culture of governance in Victoria. I want to state from the outset that at every point over the past four years in my term of Parliament, I have supported all motions and all amendments that seek to strengthen integrity in our state, which is incredibly important, because IBAC’s Operation Daintree, Operation Richmond, the Ombudsman and IBAC’s Operation Watts and the Ombudsman’s investigation into the politicisation of the public service have all painted a pretty grim picture. The centralisation of power, excessive secrecy, the degrading of ministerial responsibility and the failure to let the public service carry out its traditional function to provide frank and fearless advice have all been themes of this government in recent terms. Associate Professor William Partlett described this well when he said:

The blatant disregard for rules and ensuring ministerial responsibility in their codes of conduct suggests a contempt not just for the rules but also for constitutional democracy.

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, or IBAC, has not been able to properly address these issues largely because of legislative restrictions. Victoria is just one of two states where the IBAC act requires the high threshold of a criminal offence to make a finding of corruption. This has meant that IBAC is not able to investigate what may not amount to a criminal offence, despite still having profound impacts on public confidence, integrity and of course on governance.

It is particularly galling that we are passing this bill in the very last week of Parliament this term, because despite their gravity, these problems are not at all new. Organisations like the Centre for Public Integrity and Transparency International and even Victoria’s own integrity agencies have been calling for significant reforms to IBAC since shortly after it became operational in 2013. More recently the Integrity and Oversight Committee undertook an inquiry into the adequacy of the IBAC legislative framework that made 31 recommendations to fix this act. We have a government that is keen on pushing the judiciary to enforce so-called community expectations on sentencing but has also simultaneously found it acceptable to ignore community expectations about its own conduct. The widely held public view is that misuses of public power and money are inherently corrupt. The bill seeks to finally address this by broadening the concept of corrupt conduct to include serious disciplinary matters, including breaches of codes of conduct. The bill will also give IBAC so-called follow-the-money powers so that it can trace public funds past government agencies and extend this through private contractors, subcontractors and labour hire firms. This is important because the reality of modern government is that a considerable amount of government work and therefore public money is being conducted by and spent on third party contractors.

What is not included in this bill that the government continues to ignore is in relation to IBAC’s responsibility of police oversight, which is something I have spoken about many times before in this place. IBAC handles complaints about police criminality and misconduct. This includes violent assaults, human rights breaches, discrimination, stalking, accepting bribes, dealing drugs and driving offences. Despite it being their legislative responsibility, due to considerable resource constraints, in practice police oversight is consistently treated as secondary. This too is baked into legislation, with section 15(1A) requiring IBAC to prioritise the investigation of serious or systemic corrupt conduct. Of the 2500 complaints about police that were made to IBAC in 2024, just 0.5 per cent were investigated. The remaining complaints were either dismissed or referred back to police to investigate themselves, which is obviously an unacceptable situation. As I have said in this place time and time again, when we set up systems which allow agencies to mark their own homework – allow the fox to guard the henhouse – we do not have real oversight; we hardly have its appearance.

This is more important now than ever. Under this government police are being handed unprecedented powers to stop and search people without a warrant, to control public events and rallies and to enter people’s private homes. With IBAC’s corruption jurisdiction expanding in this bill, it is unlikely this situation will improve, and that is exactly why I will be supporting Ms Payne’s sensible amendment to repeal sections 15(1A) and 15(1B). Doing this would give IBAC more power to decide which matters it investigates based on how serious they are and the strengths of each case, so that police misconduct and allegations are not relegated to second-order issues.

Ultimately, what Victoria so desperately needs is a standalone, powerful police ombudsman that will independently and effectively investigate complaints against the police. This is yet another case of the government delaying a long-needed integrity reform. Government consultation on the systemic review of police oversight first opened in 2021, after it was recommended by the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants, even though there was a two-year indicative implementation timeframe. I first spoke about this review three years ago in an adjournment debate in this chamber, and nothing has changed since then. This work is critical for people like Jana who experience family violence by a serving police officer. IBAC was forced to publicly apologise earlier this year for mishandling her complaint after referring it back to police and ignoring her concerns about conflicts of interest.

Independent oversight of the executive and public service in all of its forms requires strong legislative frameworks, clear administrative safeguards, adequate resourcing and, importantly, the structurally independent funding model recommended by agencies. Rebuilding the public’s trust in government institutions is no small task, but when politicians spend so long resisting changes like these, that work is made considerably more difficult. Even just this week the government had to be dragged to improve this bill and move house amendments of their own after pressure from the crossbench and from the opposition.

It is on that note that I want to take an opportunity today, like many others have also done, to pay tribute to the work of Dr Tim Read, who led much of this reform before us this evening. This will only be one small part of a huge legacy that he has left on the Parliament and on the state of Victoria, and many of us are all incredibly grateful for that. We are all constantly talking about concepts like the one that is in this bill – like civics education and getting people involved in understanding our political systems, our halls of power. But if we do not set up the proper checks and balances and trustworthy systems, nobody will believe that they are actually capable of creating real change, which is certainly what many have said to me throughout the events particularly of the last year within this Parliament and the revelations in the state of Victoria. All of us, but of course particularly the major parties and parties of government, need to prioritise the work of improving integrity. This bill is a start that has been a long time coming, and I commend it to the house.

 Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (23:16): I rise to speak on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. One Nation Victoria believes that government must always be accountable to the people who elect it and pay for it. For far too long Victorians have seen billions of dollars of taxpayers money spent by governments while questions about transparency and accountability remain unanswered. We have seen major projects blow out, contracts become increasingly complex and public money flow through layers of contractors and subcontractors, yet the very body established to investigate serious corruption has not always had the powers necessary to follow that money. That is simply not good enough.

This bill is long overdue. It is about giving IBAC the tools it needs to properly investigate corruption and serious misconduct and ensuring that investigations cannot simply stop when public money moves from government to a private entity. The legislation before the Parliament follows a series of efforts this year to strengthen IBAC’s powers, and the amendments that have been tabled help strengthen it further. For One Nation Victoria this is fundamentally about trust. Victorians should not have to wonder whether political connections, government contracts or bureaucratic processes can put matters beyond proper scrutiny. They deserve an IBAC that is genuinely capable of following the evidence wherever it leads. They deserve transparency, they deserve accountability and, most importantly, Victorians deserve to have faith that when allegations of corruption arise they will be properly investigated regardless of who is involved. No government should fear a strong anti-corruption commission if it has nothing to hide. One Nation Victoria supports stronger accountability, stronger transparency and stronger protections for the Victorian taxpayer. This reform is long overdue, and I commend this bill to the house.

 Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (23:18): I move:

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

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.