Thursday, 24 September 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:27): I am pleased to stand and make a contribution to this bill, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. I should begin by saying that this bill should have come to the Parliament a lot earlier. This government has botched the process very badly, and it has done so because it has wanted to cover up and prevent scrutiny. Let us not mince words here about what has gone on. Daniel Andrews, Jacinta Allan and indeed Ben, our new Premier, and others within Labor did not want a full royal commission. They did not want IBAC strengthened, and they did not want proper scrutiny on the outright corruption that has developed in Victoria.

There are some amendments here, some I think that will be agreed across the Parliament. I might ask that the amendments of my colleague be circulated so that people can see those amendments. They fall into four groups. They make the bill fully retrospective – removing the limitations in Labor’s bill – as per the coalition’s private members bill moved in March and opposed by Labor. They insert a timely reporting requirement for reports to stop the Operation Richmond–style delay, as per the coalition’s private members bill moved in June and opposed by Labor and, I might add, carried to the lower house and opposed immediately there twice. Twice it went to the lower house, and on each occasion the government refused to even entertain discussion of the bill, defeating it on the introduction. The third point is the repeal of the examinations generally being held in private provision, section 117(1)(a), as per the coalition’s private members bill moved in March and also opposed by Labor. Fourthly, the amendments repeal the public interest immunity which enables cabinet ministers to refuse sharing certain cabinet material with IBAC.

I am just going to put on record here that there is a significant concern developing with the lengthy delay that is occurring with these amendments. These amendments could have been dealt with over the last 24 or 36 hours. They should have been dealt with through that period. They should have been prepared. But it does appear that a dirty deal is in the offing here, and that a dirty deal may have been done. I am hoping it is not with the Greens, but that is the strong rumour – that there has been a deal done to weaken the opposition’s proposals for clear lines on public interest immunity and for clear outcomes there. We would be very concerned if that is the case, and I would not want the Parliament to end on the note of a grubby outcome designed to protect Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan. The fact is these people are crooks. Daniel Andrews is shocking, and he should not be protected. They knew. They clearly knew, and anyone who doubts this should just hear what the new royal commissioner had to say yesterday. He has those briefings that were put to then transport infrastructure minister Jacinta Allan, and those briefings can really only lead to one conclusion: that she knew or should have known that the corruption was occurring.

I might say, a range of FOIs have been put in regarding Ms Allan, the Premier’s office and the transport infrastructure minister’s office, and those FOIs go back a number of years. A number of them are my FOIs. We are embroiled in controversy in VCAT because the government refuses to provide clear documentation and argues that there are public interest immunities to prevent the release of some of the information. These are briefings that are provided to ministers. These are correspondence to ministers. These are matters directly concerning corruption, the CFMEU and the construction industry.

It is very clear that this government is rotten to the core. It is corrupt to its centre. Many of its ministers are corrupt. Many of its ministers should be, frankly, in jail. It is the task of the royal commission to expose and shine light on these matters, and it will indeed be potentially the task of the special prosecutor, as per another bill, which is running in parallel with this. I note that Ben Carroll is bringing this to the chamber and bringing this to the Parliament in the last sitting week of this Parliament, having been part of the cover-up week after week, month after month and year after year as the evidence mounted again and again of the direct corrupt activity of this government and its allowance of frank and outright corruption on Big Build building sites. These Big Build building sites had tens of millions of dollars of government money flowing through them – hundreds of millions of dollars in some cases and billions of dollars in many. Those billions have been siphoned off through corrupt arrangements with the CFMEU and others, corrupt arrangements that have seen the payment of bikies, the payment of criminals, the payment of strippers and the payment of other corrupt people in and around the building industry.

Let us be clear about what is occurring here: this is a last-minute baulking by the government and potentially others. I am deeply hopeful that none of the crossbench would involve themselves in trying to weaken this bill at this sensitive and final time, because it is important that the bill is made strong enough to do the work that is required and to enable IBAC to do the work that is required. It is not good enough to allow cover-up at this stage and to allow IBAC to be nobbled, and that is the truth of what is this government is seeking to do. They are seeking to allow Daniel Andrews, Jacinta Allan and potentially other ministers and other officials within this government to get out of jail free through the use of a public interest immunity defence for failure to provide key documents to IBAC on key occasions. This is just extraordinary. $15 billion is one reliable estimate. Others indicate that it could be as much as $30 billion that has been siphoned off into these corrupt payments.

Lest anyone think that all this is over, in my own portfolio area of energy we have large construction proposed for a number of energy projects, and Jacinta Allan singled out the energy projects as the new Big Build. She said it repeatedly: ‘The new Big Build is renewable energy projects.’ I say these large energy projects, many of them very important, should not be an opportunity to siphon off money into corrupt payments. Although these projects are generally not funded directly by taxpayers; they are funded by the Australian Energy Regulator, allowing the placement of charges on the electricity bills of families and businesses in this state. That is how they are paid. They are paid for by the diversion of money from the bills of consumers – households, families and businesses – and if those projects blow out in cost massively, then those blowout costs have routinely in the past been sheeted home to families and sheeted home to small businesses across the land. It is actually appalling.

If you look at a project like VNI West, that started at $2.4 billion in estimate, and the latest Australian Energy Market Operator estimate has it at $7.6 billion, with a 50 per cent upward bound. So that estimate contains a bound saying that it is $7.6 billion, but they accept that there could be movement upwards of up to 50 per cent. If you do the arithmetic on that, that means the project is deep over $11 billion. There are some examples in this circumstance where we know that some of the costs have already not been accounted for by AEMO. For example, the cost of interest during construction is not accounted for in the AEMO cost, so it could easily be that the VNI West project blows out to more than $12 billion. If that includes any component of money being siphoned off corruptly, that is something that should be opposed. Even those proponents who think that that project is a good project should not want money siphoned off corruptly into payments to criminals, bikies and others. People should not be forced through their electricity bills on the new Big Build, as Jacinta Allan called it, to have money siphoned off to pay for corrupt payments. So it is actually very important not only that the proper controls are put in through IBAC in this bill but also, as the opposition has outlined it will do, that a code of conduct for the construction industry is reintroduced.

Let us go back to 2014. I was part of that government between 2010 and 2014. I built hospitals. They came in on time and on budget.

Ryan Batchelor: Name them.

David DAVIS: Well, the Bendigo Hospital would be a good one to start with. We got $1 billion worth of value. I would love to go through the list of hospitals. We opened Box Hill. My name is on the plaque out there. I could go on. The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre has got my signature on it. The VCCC has been a very good outcome.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David DAVIS: Well, I will tell you what happened at the eye and ear hospital. The corrupt payments got in there under your government, and do you know when that happened? We lost government in December 2014, and in January 2015 what did Daniel Andrews do? He abolished the code compliance unit and abolished the construction code. That is when everything started to go astray, including at the eye and ear hospital, and there are documents that show the corruption spiralling out of control at the eye and ear hospital. So, mate, I have got to say, the eye and ear is one of those points.

Ryan Batchelor: On a point of order, Acting President Broad, Mr Davis seems to have his finger in a position that it probably should not be in under the standing orders.

David DAVIS: I apologise for pointing. I was provoked. The eye and ear hospital is a very important hospital, a hospital that we stand by, a hospital where costs blew out because the government allowed corrupt payments to occur. That will be a matter for investigation, I hope, by the royal commission. I hope they go through it with a fine toothcomb. I hope they go through the corrupt payments there, and I hope that they go very, very carefully through the fact that the construction code was stripped out by the government as one of its first acts in January 2015. Why would they do that? Because Daniel Andrews and his mates in government were up to their necks in this corruption. They knew what was going on, and they knew they were clearing the way for corrupt payments to the CFMEU and its crooked mates. That is what happened, and that is part of what the royal commission will hopefully see.

I thought the royal commissioner spoke well yesterday. I thought he spoke clearly, and I thought he made it clear that Jacinta Allan will need to answer as to when she knew the corruption was occurring and what she knew. It is clear that briefings were provided to her. Many of us have had a red-hot go at getting some of those briefings through FOI. We know they exist. We have parts of them. We have significant documents, but we do not have all of the documents. One set of documents that I went after under FOI, which is briefings and correspondence on these matters of corruption and the CFMEU and the departmental briefings that were provided to the minister, has been heavily resisted. As recently as last week there was a compulsory conference to deal with these sorts of matters. We will pursue our amendments. I hope that no dirty deals have been done.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (10:42): I rise to speak on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026, but of course we have been here before, haven’t we? I have lost count of how many times in this term I have risen to introduce legislation – private members bills and amendments – to expand IBAC’s jurisdiction to fight the unprecedented volume and scope of corruption in Victoria only to be voted down each and every time by both the Liberal and Labor parties. I was tempted to simply incorporate one of the half-dozen or more second-reading or committee speeches I have already given in this place to save time, and I confess it has been a little galling to have to sit here and listen to government members and opposition members discussing how important these reforms are and how strongly they now support fighting corruption through an empowered IBAC. Where have you been for the last 12 years? Where were you just a few months ago when I moved amendments to expand IBAC’s jurisdiction? The cognitive dissonance of Liberal and Labor members here is truly astounding.

Here we are debating an ‘urgent’ bill to expand IBAC’s definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ beyond conduct that constitutes a criminal offence, an urgent bill because the government and opposition spent a decade blocking Greens legislation to do the same thing. Just a few months ago, when I moved amendments to expand IBAC’s definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, the government said this was far too complex a thing to do in this term, and the Liberals weakly conceded that they were absolutely no better than Labor when it came to corruption by voting with them. I think the term they used was ‘not in a position to support at this time’ – not in a position to give IBAC the powers to effectively investigate Big Build corruption this year – weak, weak, weak.

To me there is no better illustration of why the two-party system is in terminal decline than the failure over the last 15 years to give IBAC real teeth to investigate all forms of corruption in Victoria. People are rightly fed up with the two parties working together to block anti-corruption reform, because make no mistake about it, Victoria became the corruption capital of Australia not through bad luck but through the deliberate design of our anti-corruption commission by both the Labor and Liberal parties. You were told in the strongest terms from the very outset by the Honourable Stephen Charles, who chaired the committee to establish IBAC, that your weak definition of ‘corrupt conduct’ would lead to endemic levels of public corruption in this state. But this advice was ignored, and you will never guess what ended up happening. In fact the Liberals proudly boasted back in 2011 about the comprehensive limitations that IBAC would have in investigating MPs and governments, especially the executive, in terms of oversight, and Labor was only too glad to support the Liberals.

Inevitably, within months of opening its doors, IBAC had the first uniquely Victorian phenomenon of what I like to call the ‘fake IBAC referral’. The fake IBAC referral is where Victorian politicians refer their own conduct to IBAC because they know full well that IBAC does not have the jurisdiction to investigate. For a politician, the fake referral has three functions, each effectively amounting to a disinformation campaign to get themselves off the hook for dodgy behaviour. Firstly, the fake referral allowed a Victorian politician to assure the public they were taking strong action on the dodgy conduct by referring it to IBAC, even though they knew their referral was completely worthless. Secondly, the politician sought to imply to the public that IBAC would launch an investigation into the dodgy conduct, even though they knew that IBAC would summarily dismiss the referral because it was powerless to act. Finally, the politician would imply to the public that their dodgy conduct had been investigated and they had been exonerated by IBAC because no action had been taken by the anti-corruption commission, even though the reason no action had been taken was because there could be no investigation started in the first place. By enabling fake referrals – disgracefully – in many respects IBAC was designed as a tool used to shield politicians from scrutiny rather than investigate corruption.

Premier Baillieu had the distinction of being the first Premier to write a fake referral letter. Within weeks of IBAC opening its door he publicly referred shenanigans in his Deputy Premier’s office involving his own chief of staff to IBAC. Of course this referral went nowhere. But there were far more famous fake IBAC referrals to come. Remember lobster with a mobster, an all-time classic fake referral from the then opposition leader Matthew Guy? He may as well have referred his conduct to the International Criminal Court in the Hague for all the good it would have done. But the gold standard was earlier this year when Jacinta Allan waved around a referral to the media to try and claim IBAC was investigating Big Build corruption, and she would have got away with it too if not for the fact IBAC, who it appears finally got sick of politicians using its lack of teeth as a get-out-of-jail card, decided to call her bluff.

Of course blame for Big Build corruption, perhaps costing taxpayers $15 billion or more, ultimately lies with the relevant Labor ministers and the state Labor government. They are the ones that should overwhelmingly be held accountable for it. But I hope that the royal commission also looks more broadly at the systemic failures within our anti-corruption framework, especially IBAC, which long should have been empowered to be a standing royal commission, and that it looks at the evil deal between the Liberal and Labor parties, who ignored all the expert advice and blocked all the Greens legislation to strengthen IBAC’s jurisdiction over the years, because this is ultimately what created the conditions where $15 billion worth of corruption could continue unchecked for over a decade. Time and time again the Greens gave the Liberals the opportunity to step up and show that they would be better than Labor on integrity by supporting our legislation to expand IBAC’s definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, but time and time again they said, ‘No, thanks,’ and voted with the Labor government they called corrupt, so corruption was allowed to continue. While we cannot be sure that a properly empowered IBAC would have prevented the corruption from occurring in the first place, there is no doubt in my mind that it would not have allowed it to be so corrupt and so costly for so long. The Greens have amendments; I now ask if they could please be circulated.

Our first amendment is one of the amendments that was previously moved by the Greens but blocked by the Liberals and Labor. The amendment repeals the exceptional circumstances threshold for holding public hearings, which has effectively prevented the public from seeing IBAC’s work in progress. You only have to look at New South Wales’s anti-corruption commission public hearings going on right now with Operation Rosny to see how instructive public hearings can be in giving the public a real insight into the grubby world of Labor and Liberal internal politics. Importantly, the Greens amendment will also insert a further requirement in the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act 2011 that the decision to hold public hearings must be approved by two IBAC commissioners. This is consistent with New South Wales’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, is supported by the Centre for Public Integrity and will provide less opportunity for those embroiled in an IBAC public hearing to claim that they are the victim of some personal vendetta by the IBAC Commissioner.

The second amendment will require that the government of the day must publish on a website the codes of conduct for ministers and parliamentary secretaries. This is a small but important fail-safe to support the expanded definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, which includes breaches of ministerial codes of conduct. It is also in line with IBAC’s recommendations and investigations, including Operation Richmond and Operation Watts.

My third amendment is to promote budget and funding transparency for IBAC. If IBAC is provided with expanded jurisdictional powers under this bill, then it can still be inhibited by a determined government in terms of not providing it with sufficient funding. In fact I can almost guarantee that this will be the case regardless of who forms government. Currently IBAC shares with the Integrity and Oversight Committee a draft of its annual plan laying out its operational strategy for the next 12 months, but it does not share with the committee budget submissions, which are considered cabinet in confidence. It is important that Parliament has some oversight of the integrity agency’s funding and whether it is sufficient to meet the agency’s strategic goals. The Greens amendment provides this parliamentary oversight and public transparency in terms of IBAC’s funding.

The final amendment adds some strength to the process for appointing IBAC commissioners and deputy commissioners to ensure that this process is rigorous. The amendment requires that vacancies of Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner positions are open and publicly advertised – something that I believe this government has done in practice but a future government may not. It also provides that with the appointment of a Commissioner the minister must establish a selection committee to consider the suitability of the appointment. Given the extraordinary powers that the IBAC Commissioner will have, including over a government and executive that may have appointed them, we believe that the process for appointing the Commissioner needs to be strengthened. These amendments are in line with the Commonwealth Administrative Review Tribunal appointments and are, once again, strongly supported by the Centre for Public Integrity.

Finally, we have amendments to clarify the transitional arrangements to ensure there is no doubt that IBAC can retrospectively investigate anything it wants to with these new powers. We are glad to have worked with the government and opposition, which has resulted in the government adopting some of what the Greens have proposed as house amendments. We will have more to say about these amendments during the committee stage of the bill, but my appeal to everyone in this place is to recognise the importance of these reforms not just for Victorians but for themselves.

My colleague Dr Tim Read understood the critical importance of having robust integrity agencies, which is why he fought so hard for IBAC reform. He believed that people in positions of power need proper oversight and should be held accountable for their actions, because the public deserve transparency and honesty from those who serve them. When this is not the case, corruption and poor governance go unchecked, bad decisions get made, taxpayer money is squandered, governments cannot deliver on their promise and the public lose out on vital services and infrastructure, and ultimately people’s faith in democracy is eroded. We have seen all of this play out in Victoria, and the fallout is likely to shape Victoria for a very long time to come. We have an opportunity right now, in this last week of Parliament, to put politics aside, to put the interests of the public front and centre and to show Victorians that they matter by working together to deliver the integrity agency we need and they deserve.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:53): I also rise to speak on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. If there is one thing that I find people hate, it is when there is ‘one rule for me and one rule for thee’. In conversations that I have had, whether it is in relation to the management of government projects, to budgets blowing out or to timelines blowing out and seeing the effect that has had on everyday Victorians, often people say that if this had happened in a business or if this had happened in a regular organisation, that person would be fired. Yet there has just been this ongoing pattern of people escaping accountability for decisions and for actions that are making a massive impact on the lives of Victorian people. I think that it is often in discussions like this that people reflect back on bad behaviour from the opposite side of the chamber and try to sometimes cast things in a certain light. The fact is it is us here now, and it is our responsibility to make sure that government has integrity. It is one of the most important jobs, in my opinion, that you can ever have. The fact is that we represent millions of Victorians, as do those on the Treasury benches. That money is not our money, it is their money, and it has to be handled with the utmost respect.

Today I am speaking on this bill, and we are supporting this bill because the reality is that the anti-corruption watchdog needs stronger powers. IBAC have been asking for it for years. The crossbench has been asking for it for years. We have been asking for it for years. It is just time that it happens. I want to just give a shout-out to our team in the Assembly, which is so ably led by James Newbury. He pointed out the central flaw in this legislation, which is that it is not retrospective, and we want to take that further. We believe – and of course nothing is final, because there have been changes in the schedule once again – that it will be retrospective. That is an important move. Because it has been brought out into the light, the government cannot just continue to obfuscate that responsibility. I want to thank James for doing that, and also I want to put on record why we are moving some of these amendments. I really hope that, finally, it is supported, that we actually have an IBAC organisation that has some teeth and that it has the ability to actually clean up corruption, because that has, quite frankly, not happened.

Mr Davis mentioned how twice there have been amendments passed in this house to strengthen IBAC and give IBAC some teeth, but then when they have gone down to the lower house, because Labor have an absolute majority, they have not even been considered. This has been hugely frustrating, and I have mentioned it before in this place. Of course in any position of leadership you are going to get your odd dodgy person that is in there for the wrong reasons. That is the truth. Bad people will exploit either vulnerable people or places of power. That happens. But I believe that, mostly, people come in here with the right intentions. I believe something changed on that side the day that that $15 billion was reported. It was like it was so bad, it was so huge, that they could not face up to the reality of that. It was too hard. That is why we need these protections.

In December last year Parliament’s own Integrity and Oversight Committee handed down its report. It drew on submissions from IBAC itself, from integrity experts, from the Ombudsman and from Victorians that have just watched a decade of this happening – of rules for me and rules for thee. It has been so difficult for me, particularly that time when it came out that on government worksites there were strippers, there were drugs and there was all of this behaviour that was just so egregious. That was really a rorting of state finances, while the people that paid those taxes were struggling to put food on the table.

I will often come back to this story; it is one that means something to me because it was around the same time. The week that that story came out and we were hearing about how horrific that was, I was meeting with those businesses in Bald Hill who because of the Big Build had had so much access to their businesses restricted. I remember talking to one of the business owners, saying, ‘How are you going?’ She had just pulled her kids out of sport because they could not afford it anymore. It was like they were scaling back on their lives. It was one of those moments that will stick with me forever. This is why integrity in government is so important, because those are the people that we are meant to serve. Every one of the taxpayer dollars that they contribute to this amazing state has to mean something, and it has to be handled with proper respect and integrity.

The inquiry made some serious recommendations. These amendments are still not final, obviously, because it has been pushed down the road again. But we have to make sure that we are adopting, particularly from the inquiry’s work, the recommendations that are going to make this work. That is the truth. The amendments that we think are coming through are genuine and will strengthen IBAC, and we will certainly support them. I hope that the crossbench and also members of the government, because we all come in here to serve the Victorian people, see that this is what builds trust and brings things into the light, so people can know that their taxpayer dollars are being used responsibly.

There is a well-documented history in recent years of the type of behaviour that this bill is meant to expose. That is the reality, and we have to make sure that this happens. Last month the Auditor-General’s report showed that there had been a secret tax on public transport. This was another one of those moments where I felt – particularly when you have got Victorians coming in – like, ‘How is this happening?’ These are people who are there to serve us. They seem to be on more money than us and have more security than us, yet we are not being treated with the respect and the openness that we should be. This secret tax was quietly implemented without Victorians knowing about it, and it was to bail out the government, who have been mismanaging the budget since 2014. This is what was said on ABC News on 26 August – that this secret tax was ‘a scandal of the highest order’. That is true. It is a scandal of the highest order.

Many have spoken about the mess around the CFMEU. Geoffrey Watson SC, who led the inquiry into criminal infiltration of the union’s Victorian branch, told a parliamentary committee this year that corrupt practices on Big Build projects inflated costs by an estimated $15 billion. That is a huge number in itself, and we could go through what that money could buy. But put that in the context of business owners that are struggling to pay their tax, pulling their kids out of different sports because they can no longer afford it, winding back on holidays or maybe meat for meals or whatever it is or trying to make their balance sheet work where the government seems to be doing the opposite. There is the money side of it, but a cost that might even be bigger is the trust side of it and the transparency side of it. It matters. That has been a figure, $15 billion – some say $30 billion – and the government have said, ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s not true.’ But they have not given a credible rebuttal of what that is.

Geoffrey Watson also told the committee that the flow-on effects reach ordinary Victorians renovating their homes because tradies cannot compete with wages inflated by union standover tactics on government projects. Isn’t that so sad? They cannot renovate their homes. That is the family that wants to have another child and wants to build on another room and cannot do that. That is the young person that wants to get into a house and cannot do that. These are the effects of integrity in politics. That is $15 billion that Labor let bleed out of the Big Build and into bikie gangs and into some of the things that happened. We have gone over it a lot in this place. It is just so egregious. $15 billion is a staggering betrayal of trust. It could have bought so many things. Just imagine if we had had none of this grave corruption in the last decade. I think we could have built the hospitals that this government promised and did not deliver. We could have upgraded the roads. We could have upgraded the schools, we could have had more teachers, better paid teachers – all of the things that this could have funded. We could have had additional police on our streets at a time when, as we saw in the youth justice report that was handed down yesterday, 3.3 per cent of Victorians are victims of crime. If that money had gone to police – because as we know, every day we are 1500 short – I think that number would have been a lot smaller.

We have got to begin with every single decision we make by looking at it right next to the reality and the situation of the people that we are here protecting and that we are meant to represent. You cannot siphon off $15 billion and then genuinely say to the business that is closing its doors – there are 350 per day in Victoria, by the way – ‘We stand for you.’ It is disingenuous if you are saying that. You cannot go to the family that is pulling their kids out of sport and say, ‘We stand for you,’ if you are not willing to clean this up. Plus, you have to realise that every Victorian, just about, sees the news when they flick through Instagram or Facebook or they read the paper. They are not going to trust a government that says ‘There won’t be blowouts anymore, we’re turning over a new leaf’ if they have seen the reality of what is going on. What we have seen in the last few years has been the Spring Street bubble at its best. It has been a shocking disconnect between the people in here and the people out there. That is why this matters.

What about the time when the previous Premier said that the IBAC findings were ‘educational’? If they were educational – and that was in 2018 – it has been a very long time to learn the lesson, because we are here on the last day of Parliament filling in time while the government tries to get amendments through. Maybe the lesson should have been learned when this ‘educational’ report was handed down in 2018.

This is why I think our amendment about timely reporting is so important, because it took eight years for IBAC to finally table the Operation Richmond report, which was the investigation into the secret 2016 pay negotiations between Andrews and the United Firefighters Union. IBAC found that the government breached its own policies, procedures, codes of conduct and conventions by negotiating directly and in secret without the knowledge of the responsible minister or the cabinet. That was a result of – as reported on 5 August – no-one being in the position to properly hold the government to account. If we want to be in a position where the government, whoever it is, is properly held to account, there has to be an IBAC with teeth, there has to be a government that is willing to provide documents and there has to be the convention that when ministers or responsible members of the party go to inquiries they actually have to front up with the evidence. This is extremely important. Victoria Elliott said this of the government’s failing:

Operation Richmond highlights how government leaders, including ministers and the Premier, can undermine established checks and balances when they fail to model high integrity standards and act as stewards of good governance.

(Time expired)

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:09): I rise to make a contribution to the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026 on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria. Established in 2011, IBAC was created to strengthen Victoria’s integrity framework by preventing, exposing and addressing public sector corruption and police misconduct. Victorians rightly expect every dollar of public money to be spent responsibly and for their state to be governed with transparency and integrity. Corruption must never be allowed to slip through the cracks, and those entrusted with public power must be held accountable. Victoria has spent billions of dollars of public money on the Big Build projects that will affect every Victorian, reshaping our roads, our railways and our communities in the future. But the Big Build exposed a serious flaw in Victoria’s integrity system.

When billions of dollars of taxpayers money moves through government agencies, private companies, contractors and subcontractors, the question is not simply where the money goes; it is who receives it, who benefits from it and who is held accountable for deliberate misuse of these funds. The Premier committed to stronger government integrity and accountability, including giving IBAC the ability to follow the money through private contractors and to broaden the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’. That commitment is extremely welcomed, but stronger promises must be matched by stronger laws, because public money does not stop being public money when it leaves the government and enters a private contract, and accountability cannot stop either. The question is: who is accountable when something goes wrong? For too long IBAC has faced too many obstructions to following public money once it moves beyond the boundaries of government and into the accounts of private companies delivering major public projects. The government itself has acknowledged that these gaps have limited IBAC’s ability to investigate allegations of corruption connected to the major projects. That should concern every Victorian because it is not just about the construction industry and it is not just about one project, one contractor or one set of allegations; it is about whether our integrity system can actually follow the money – taxpayers money. Victorians should not have to trust that billions of dollars are being protected. They should have an integrity system powerful enough to prove it.

The proposed reforms are intended to capture a wider range of serious misconduct and the government’s commitment to integrity and accountability. These are significant reforms. But they raise an important question: why has it taken so long for IBAC to be given expanded powers to properly investigate corruption and misconduct? That is why these reforms must go further. IBAC needs a broader jurisdiction, meaningful investigative powers and greater transparency so that Victorians have confidence allegations of wrongdoing will be properly examined regardless of who is involved or where public money ends up.

In December last year the Integrity and Oversight Committee (IOC), of which I am a member, handed down its report examining whether IBAC has the powers and legislative framework it needs to do its job properly. The answer was clear: there are significant gaps that need to be addressed. I would like to take this moment to acknowledge the chair of the Integrity and Oversight Committee, the late Dr Tim Read. Dr Read brought a deep commitment to integrity, transparency and accountability to the work of the committee. Tim was a true gentleman. He always made you feel heard, took on board what you were saying and engaged in a way, even when disagreeing, that was respectful and productive, qualities that saw him perform his role as chair incredibly well. He was an absolute pleasure to work alongside, and I will miss him. Tim led this inquiry with passion, diligence and genuine leadership and understood the importance of ensuring Victoria’s integrity system is strong enough to command public confidence.

The committee made 31 recommendations to strengthen Victoria’s integrity system and give IBAC the tools it needs to investigate corruption effectively. These recommendations include broadening the definition of ‘corrupt conduct’, clarifying key provisions in the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act 2011 and strengthening IBAC’s investigative powers. Dr Read and I specifically supported the change for IBAC to have greater powers to hear evidence from witnesses in public, but the government and the opposition did not, at that time, support this change. The recommendations go to a fundamental question: when there are serious allegations of corruption or misconduct involving public money and public institutions, does Victoria’s anti-corruption agency have the power to follow the evidence wherever it leads?

For a long time, Victoria’s IBAC has had fewer powers than most other integrity bodies in Australia. The message from the IOC report was pretty clear: Victoria’s anti-corruption framework could be strengthened by expanding the powers of IBAC. When our integrity watchdog does not have the powers it needs to properly investigate corruption and its work is hidden from public view, it does little to restore public trust in democracy. If the Carroll government is not serious about transparency, it is up to crossbenchers to scrutinise its actions and to hold it to account. Victorians should be able to trust that allegations of corruption will be taken seriously, investigated independently and dealt with appropriately.

IBAC is not just Victoria’s watchdog, it is also Victoria’s independent police oversight body. That responsibility demands independence, focus and the resources to properly investigate police corruption and misconduct. That is why the committee recommended that IBAC formally establish a dedicated police corruption and misconduct division, putting police accountability at the heart of Victoria’s integrity system, and I echo those initiatives. In July I introduced a private members bill to restore IBAC’s ability to independently investigate police misconduct. Current legislation has limited IBAC’s power to investigate police misconduct. IBAC investigates only 1 per cent of police misconduct cases, including brutality. The rest are either dismissed or sent back to the police. It is also an unfathomable truth that First Peoples continue to face systemic racism, from racial profiling and overpolicing to greater use of force, searches, arrests and remand. This is not equal justice; it is a failure of accountability. I will be moving an amendment to repeal section 15(1A) of the IBAC act, and I ask that this amendment be circulated.

Section 15(1A) was intended to guide IBAC’s priorities. Instead, it has had serious unintended consequences. It unduly restricts the IBAC Commissioner’s discretion to allocate resources while pushing serious police misconduct complaints and police oversight matters down the priority list. The consequences have been significant, harming individuals and undermining the community’s ability to seek independent accountability. These outcomes do not appear to have been foreseen by Parliament when the provision was introduced.

We all know that police misconduct is not an internal police matter. It is a dangerous conflict of interest, it can pose a threat to community safety and it destroys public trust in our institutions and those who are given powers. Victorians have seen it play out again and again in the media and in inquiries, in stories of victim-survivors whose lives have been affected and in the repeat calls from stakeholders for stronger independent police oversight. When allegations of serious misconduct arise, Victorians should not have to wonder who is investigating the police, whether conflicts of interest exist or whether misconduct is being properly examined, exposed and addressed. If police misconduct remains an internal police matter and the watchdog cannot properly scrutinise those investigations, accountability has a serious blind spot. Victorians deserve better. When allegations of misconduct are investigated by the system being scrutinised, Victorians can reasonably question whether that process is truly independent.

The Integrity and Oversight Committee recommended establishing a dedicated police corruption and misconduct division within IBAC, strengthening independent oversight by requiring reasons for referral, preventing conflicts of interest and allowing IBAC to review police investigations. It is concerning that Victoria Police provided only limited responses to questions on notice and declined to attend a hearing or make a submission to that inquiry. These reforms are about one basic principle: when police are accused of misconduct, the public must be able to trust that those allegations are investigated independently, properly and transparently. The need for stronger police oversight is not something that is new. Back in 2018 the police oversight inquiry was established after concerns were raised about the way complaints against police were being investigated, including calls for a genuinely independent complaints handling system. The royal commission recommended that the Victorian government review the laws and institutions responsible for overseeing Victoria Police to ensure our oversight system is consistent, coordinated and capable of delivering meaningful police accountability. That recommendation matters because public confidence depends on people knowing that when allegations of police misconduct are made, they are taken seriously and investigated independently.

My amendment, which is also recommendation 18 in the IOC’s report, is to repeal section 15(1A). Section 15(1A) was intended to guide IBAC’s priorities, but in practice it has serious unintended consequences. The committee supported amending section 15(1A) to make it unequivocally clear that serious police misconduct must be a priority for IBAC and that, except in exceptional circumstances, IBAC – not Victoria Police – must investigate it. This is about putting independence at the heart of police oversight. It constrained the Commissioner’s discretion to allocate IBAC’s resources where they were most needed and it contributed to serious police misconduct and police oversight matters being given less priority. The consequences were not just administrative. Real people were affected, causing real and lasting harm. Serious complaints were deprioritised and public confidence in our integrity system was undermined.

Nearly a decade on from the police oversight inquiry, we should be asking whether Victoria has done enough to deliver that independent and effective oversight. Police independence is a fundamental principle of our democracy. It ensures that police can investigate crime, enforce the law and make operational decisions without improper political interference or pressure from those in positions of power. Better police oversight is not just about holding officers accountable when things go wrong. More importantly, it is about creating a police culture where misconduct is challenged and speaking up is seen as a responsibility, not as a risk. Stronger and independent oversight empowers police officers to speak up and build a healthier police culture. It also protects the many officers who do the right thing, ensuring they are not left isolated or undermined.

With the recent announcement of Jack’s law and the further expansion of police powers in Victoria, the need for stronger police oversight and accountability has never been more important. When we give police greater powers, we must also strengthen the safeguards around how they use those powers. Victorians deserve to know that police powers are exercised lawfully, proportionately and without discrimination and that when misconduct occurs, there is a genuinely independent body capable of investigating it. More police powers must come with more accountability, not less.

These IBAC reforms are a start, but they are not enough. Victorians deserve more than promises of integrity and accountability. They deserve meaningful action and transparency and an integrity system that works in the public interest. Accountability must never be optional. Transparency must never be an afterthought and integrity must always be at the forefront of democracy. On behalf of the Legalise Cannabis Party, we support this bill.

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:24): I too rise to speak on the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment Bill 2026. I want to start by saying, ‘Shame, shame, shame.’ Shame on this government that we are even in this situation, that we even have to have a debate in order to hold this government to account and to make sure that IBAC has the powers that it needs to be able to look into what has really been going on on things like the Big Build – where the money has really gone, who it has gone to and who is responsible. The public feel very, very strongly about this. I can tell you that in the south-east region which I represent the people are hurting. I have been there and seen the lines at places like Transit, who are trying to feed people, three times a week providing groceries and twice a week providing a three-course meal. There are many places like that. Families who have never had to access services are finding themselves having to access services because they are having to pay so much money in tax to this government. And what is it doing with it? That is what we want to know because we do know that there is corruption. We do know that there is a large volume of money – billions and billions and billions of dollars – that has been wasted. It has been wasted and has not gone where it was supposed to go. It has gone into overinflated costs and overinflated hours. We do not even exactly know everything about what has been going on. I can tell you the stories that circulate throughout the south-east, throughout the whole of my region, because so many people work in the building industry or have friends that do. It does not matter how much people try to keep this quiet; I can tell you people know, and they want heads to roll. They want people to be held accountable.

I could never understand why people would constantly come to me at the beginning, when I got elected to the 60th Parliament, and say to me, ‘What’s your agenda? What are you here for?’ I just found that question really surprising. I can say with all clarity, here on the last day of the 60th Parliament, that I had two objectives. The first one: to me, the face of Daniel Andrews was the face of everything that was going wrong in terms of oppression and corruption. I thought, ‘If he’s gone, maybe it will change.’ But he did leave in that first year, 2023, and it did not change everything. In fact I think that corruption had become so embedded in the concrete and fabric of this state that things only continued to roll out and expand. Like a cancer, it continued to spread.

My second great mission here is, was and continues to be to get rid of this tired government, this government that has failed Victorians. It has failed Victorians with things like the Big Build and the money that goes into the Big Build. The cost blowouts for the Big Build are phenomenal, and the powers that IBAC requires must be retrospective. There are no ifs or buts about that. We must make sure that people can be named. We need justice, and the people want justice. They are paying such significant amounts of money. Businesses have closed. People have retired early from their businesses. They have not given them to their children; they have had to just disband their businesses in many cases. In many cases people are struggling just to keep the lights on, the air conditioning on or the heater on. Whatever the time of year, it has been tough for people. Do not tell us that the money has gone to where it was supposed to go, because every time a tyre blows out or we lose a life on our roads due to potholes or roads that have not been maintained properly, we all know in Victoria that the money has not gone where it was supposed to go.

Everybody in this state is paying the price, and it is time to remove this tired government. My greatest mission is to see it gone and to see the Liberals and Nationals in government, because unless we have that change, we are not going to see all the changes we need. But the very least that we can do is make sure that we have integrity and transparency, and this government has failed to provide both. It is not a secret. We all know it. We all feel it. Every time I drive past a single weed on a road, I look at it and think, ‘There’s a government that has failed us. Where has our taxpayer money gone?’ When I go into a school and it has saucepans to catch the leaks from the roof – in a city like Melbourne, Victoria, it is appalling to think that we have children having to go to schools that are run down. Where has the money gone? We need to give the powers to IBAC. We need to have transparency. We must have the integrity that the people of Victoria deserve, and they deserve it in a government that is not going to fail them.

I am so glad that we have a Liberal and Nationals plan, a 10-year plan to make sure that there will be less crime in this community; to make sure that there will be lower costs, lower taxes and lower government fees and charges; to make sure that we will have a transparent and accountable government; to make sure that there will be more investment in health, education and local infrastructure; to make sure that there will be a 25 per cent fair share guarantee for regional Victoria; to make sure that we will end the corruption; to make sure that there will be adult time for adult crime; to make sure there will be a one-strike rule for bail; and to make sure that we abolish the emergency services tax, the schools tax, the GP tax and the holiday tax, which is a holiday rental tax. We will abolish stamp duty for first home buyers.

We need to see changes. We need to see where our tax money has gone. I can tell you that the Big Build has blown out by at least $15 billion, which we know is corrupt money. It could be as much as $30 billion. That is a lot of money. It is so much money that most of us cannot even get our heads around it, when schools might be crying out for a few hundred thousand or a couple of million to be able to expand something, to have enough classrooms to teach their kids. I mean, the government may have built some schools in areas where they desperately needed them, but they have not even built enough classrooms in those schools. Portables are going to have to be brought into these brand new schools because they did not think it through and did not do the job properly.

Why is it that in health and in education, where the money needs to go, it has not been there, but it has been there for the Big Build to build things that people did not even ask for? We still cannot get a train from the airport out to the suburbs. It is the most embarrassing thing to live in a cosmopolitan city like this, that boasts of being the most multicultural city in Australia, which means many people are coming in from all these different countries, and we have to say to every single visitor, ‘I am so sorry, we don’t have a train that you can catch from Melbourne Airport out to the suburbs to visit your family. You’re going to have to catch a bus or an Uber or a taxi because we don’t do that; we haven’t got that here in Victoria.’ We could have had it, but no, this government has failed Victorians. And now they want to build a Suburban Rail Loop that nobody asked for, drawn up on a serviette in a backroom, or some say in an aeroplane, some idea so that they can make sure that they have a train service that goes around and touches a whole lot of different electorates to make sure that those electorates end up having social housing and to ensure that they are never going to be seats that will be going to the Liberal Party or to the Nationals, making sure that they will always hold government and nobody else will be able to be elected. That is not democracy, that is not sensible and that is not a good use of taxpayers money when people are working hard.

We have in the balcony right now a whole bunch of students, and I can guarantee that a lot of their parents are doing it tough trying to pay those bills. The last thing they need is to know that their money is being wasted on criminal cartels and going into the pockets of people who do not need it. I am not against unions when unions are doing their job to be fair, but it is not fair or reasonable when they are becoming wealthy off the taxpayer by being corrupt. That is not what the unions were built for. Shame on this government. Shame on you. Shame on you for taking the hard-earned wages of Victorians. Shame on you for turning this state into a corrupt state which has welcomed criminals into it, and now you do not even want to be transparent enough to be accountable and to give IBAC the powers. We have to have all this negotiation going on to try to shut it down so that the heads that need to roll and the people that need to be in prison will not be caught and will not be named and will not be made accountable. Shame on you. You do not deserve to be in government. You do not deserve to have these positions. It is not fair, it is not right and it is not just. This is not what Victorians signed up for when they voted you into office. I hope to God they do not vote for you again, because it is time for a change in this state. We must have a fresh start. We have to get rid of this government. We have to see people come in that are prepared to have integrity and to be transparent.

That is what this is all about. It is about giving IBAC the powers that it needs to be transparent. It is about allowing it to be retrospective so that we can see what was going on and who was involved and what they did. If they have been involved in criminal activity, if they have been wasting a single dollar of the taxpayer, they deserve to be held accountable, because right now somebody has had to make a decision on their family, as Dr Heath said, where they have had to pull their kid out of a school, had to stop them from doing a sport, not been able to give them the meal that they wanted to give them, had to cancel a holiday or had to make some tough decisions. Maybe they cannot get them the shoes they needed or maybe they cannot give them the opportunities that they want to afford them because they are paying their taxes. And for what? For corruption. For criminals to take that money. Shame on this government. It is absolutely time for a fresh start in this state.

I strongly support the amendments that we are supporting here as the Liberals and Nationals. We want to make sure that the people of Victoria get transparency in government and that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission has the powers that it needs to be able to do the investigations to name and shame those that this government is trying desperately to protect. If you have done the crime, you should do the time.

 Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:37): I move:

That debate be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.