2020-10-15
Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, says the Liberal Party's continued excuses for not having a National anti-corruption body have become utterly farcical.
“More leaked talking points, more excuses. The Liberals have spent thousands of words justifying why there's still no Federal ICAC, when it would only take a vote in the House to implement the Greens bill that has already passed the Senate,” Bandt said.
“This has been an issue for going on a decade, and there has been legislation before parliament for several years. It has also been more than 18 months since this government announced they were fully committed to a national ICAC.
“We could have a Federal ICAC passed on Monday. The Greens' bill has already passed the Senate and it's right there, ready to go.
“The excuse that the government is ‘too busy’ is utterly ridiculous. They’ve found time to attack the environment, jack up fees for uni students and weaken donations laws in the most recent sittings.”
“The debacle in NSW is proof positive of why we need a Federal ICAC. Dodgy behaviour by politicians doesn't stop at the ACT border."
Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Democracy, Senator Larissa Waters, said:
“The reason we still don’t have a federal ICAC is because this government has so many skeletons in the closet," Senator Waters said.
“This week the NSW ICAC once again proved how effective corruption watchdogs are for sniffing out political stink.
"The sideshow of scandals plaguing the Morrison government shows the corrupting influence dirty donations have on decision-making.
"It’s been pork barrelling on steroids with Sports Rorts 1, Sports Rorts 2, the Shine Energy saga, and too many Angus Taylor incidents to count - and those are just the scandals we know of!
"The Morrison Government isn’t 'too busy' to implement a federal corruption watchdog, they just want to keep their hands in the political cookie jar."
While the Morrison government has been ‘too busy’ to implement a federal ICAC, they have managed to find the time to:
- Change donations laws to allow political donations to be funnelled between state and federal branches, subverting stronger state donations laws (passed with Labor support).
- Ram through EPBC laws to weaken environmental standards, checks and balances before even receiving the final report from the review that they initiated.
- Legislating to massively increase the cost of university degrees