Face of Nation : Greens’ federal corruption watchdog proposal has passed the Senate after drumming up Labor and crossbench support, but is set to fail in the lower house. Nevertheless, the minor party still holds hopes of convincing a handful of government MPs to cross the floor to make it a reality.
“Or is he going to persist with his weak, toothless, much-criticised and underfunded model, that won’t actually change a thing?” Morrison government senators lashed the Greens’ model as being dangerously broad, with the mooted body to have the investigative powers of a royal commission.
The government has promised to create a new Commonwealth Integrity Commission but is yet to release draft legislation. Its model has been criticised for lacking teeth, while the Greens have pushed for a powerful corruption watchdog for a decade.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts said his party – which controls two crucial crossbench votes – supported the idea of a corruption body but opposed the Greens’ model. Despite the Pauline Hanson-led outfit’s opposition to the bill, the government couldn’t muster support to defeat the legislation, which passed 35 votes to 32, on Monday.
The draft laws will now progress to the House of Representatives where the government has the numbers to shoot them down. But Senator Waters has been talking to coalition backbenchers and is quietly hopeful of winning support. She also raised the possibility of the Greens backing the government’s own bill if it adds some bite.
“We’re not precious about how this gets done, we just want a good corruption watchdog that’s actually going to clean up politics,” she said. Politicians and officials involved in those issues, some of which have been scrutinised by parliamentary inquiries, deny wrongdoing.
“There have been a litany of examples of dodgy conduct that I personally consider to be corrupt conduct,” Senator Waters told parliament. Liberal senator Amanda Stoker said the Greens simply wanted to land a “cheap shot” on the coalition.
“(The government’s model has) the potential to get the kind of across-the-aisle support that means it could stand the test of time, rather than becoming the kind of political football that the Australian Greens like so much,” she said. She said state-based corruption bodies had been exposed as “deeply flawed” in recent years.
Labor frontbencher Murray Watt said the Morrison government didn’t want to shine a light on corruption. “Experts in these matters describe the government’s proposal as a sham and a joke,” he said.
