2022-11-29
NACC Bill passes Senate in historic vote with critical Greens amends on integrity
Tuesday 29 November 2022
In an historic moment for the Federal Parliament, the National Anti-Corruption Bill has passed the Senate with broad cross party support and critical Greens amendments that protect its integrity.
Greens amendments to the NACC bill give significant additional powers to the Inspector of the Commission to provide real time auditing and monitoring of the NACC’s workings and to guard against potential overreach and maladministration.
In a missed opportunity to further future-proof the NACC, a series of further crossbench amendments to remove the extraordinary circumstances test for public hearings and to provide a non-government majority for the oversight committee were unsuccessful, with Labor and the Coalition joining together to block amendments to address this.
Senator David Shoebridge said:
“It’s an extraordinary day with the NACC Bill finally passing the Senate and only days away from becoming law.
“Today’s historic vote comes after decades of advocacy and work by the Greens, other crossbenchers as well as many advocates and organisations in civil society.
“The Greens worked collaboratively across the Parliament to secure key improvements to the bill which will guard against any potential overreach by the NACC and ensure procedural fairness for witnesses.
“This Bill gives the NACC extremely broad powers to compel witnesses to answer questions and to force the production of documents, and with this comes the need for a fully empowered Inspector to be a check on any potential misuse of these powers.
“The fact that many of the hearings of the NACC will be entirely private because of the exceptional circumstances test, means an empowered Inspector is particularly critical.
“In the absence of more transparent public hearings, witnesses who come before the NACC need to have access to an empowered Inspector if they have been improperly questioned or denied procedural fairness. These amends give them that right.
“Pressure from transparency advocates and key stakeholders, as well as the Greens, has also pushed the Government to improve protections for journalists and their sources.We welcome those amendments that were made in the House last week
“We now need the NACC to open its doors for business as soon as possible, because after almost a decade of Coalition pork-barrelling and abuse of office, there is a huge amount of work for it to do,” Senator Shoebridge said.