2015-10-22
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is for the Special Minister of State. Recently the Presiding Officers circulated to selected party leaders some advice and guidance from the Department of Parliamentary Services in regard to the proper use of staffing resources for members in this place. Does the government concur with the advice that was contained in that document, and has the minister circulated this to his party members for their guidance?
Mr JENNINGS (Special Minister of State) — I thank the member for his question. In terms of the government's view on these matters, the government has on every occasion said a number of things in relation to these circumstances. One is that in fact the Labor Party believes that the arrangements that have been in place in terms of the employment status of people who are employed by Labor Party MPs have been consistent with the rules, and we stand by that. We have never deserted from that view. The government itself has actually not formally constituted a view, but the Labor Party and indeed the Labor Party in office are of that view.
The piece of advice that the member refers to, interestingly enough, was not shared with me. In fact in terms of my responsibility — —
Mr Drum — You haven't seen it?
Mr JENNINGS — I may have sighted it, but in fact it was not circulated to me. It was not my document to circulate to anybody because I was not given a copy of it. And I understand — —
Mr Drum — It was written with you in mind.
Mr JENNINGS — I don't think it was written with me in mind.
Mr Drum — I think it was written with you in mind.
Mr JENNINGS — I don't think so. What I understand is there was responsibility taken within the Parliament itself to try to work through what might be the regime to provide for greater certainty of the arrangement of employment relationships in future. I believe that there was an internal working document in the formative stage of actually trying to work through to provide for greater certainty into the future in areas that are currently subject to community debate and some degree of misapprehension in the community. Indeed I believe it was a working document for that reason within the Parliament. It could and should be understood to be dealt with in that way.
In relation to the public scrutiny of these matters, I have reported on many occasions on behalf of the government that we are fully open to the scrutiny of any relevant body or agency which wants to look at these matters, whether it be the police, IBAC, the Ombudsman — we are open to comply with that investigation. We are absolutely open to that and are happy to allow the consequences to fall as they may in relation to that scrutiny. We also note that we believe and we have confidence that the audit committee of the Parliament, which is constituted in an appropriate way by the Presiding Officers and others to evaluate the circumstances by which parliamentary resources are used, is the appropriate body to look at that. I have made that comment on any number of occasions in the Parliament previously. In fact, from the government's perspective, we are totally happy to allow that work to proceed at the audit committee. We are happy to comply and to be subject to the scrutiny of any relevant agency. That is the government's view on those matters.
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — I think the dilemma we may be debating here is that while the minister's government view is that it complied with the rules, there are other arguments being put at other times in other places that the rules are not very clear. It has been established by a finding of the lower house Privileges Committee in the case of Mr Shaw that a misuse of parliamentary resources could be found to be a breach of the code of conduct for MPs contained in the Members of Parliament (Register of Interests) Act 1978, for which the minister is responsible. The act has within it the capacity to make regulations prescribing any matter or thing authorised or required or necessary to be prescribed under the act, including the code of conduct. As I have said, the code of conduct relates to the proper use of parliamentary resources. Is the government considering any regulations to bring forth more clarity?
Mr JENNINGS (Special Minister of State) — I certainly am very prepared to actually say that I personally believe that we would all benefit from greater clarity in relation to these matters. Absolutely, unequivocally, I believe that greater clarity should be brought to bear and in fact a more consistent application of standards should be seen to be brought to the Parliament. I totally accept that and totally support that. I would not use the considerations and the standards set by the last Privileges Committee, in my view, as the benchmark for achieving that. I actually do not think that the quality of its work, in my view, contributed much to the resolution of these matters or a greater degree of confidence within the Parliament or the community. I accept that in fact there needs to be further work done and I have actually embarked with the people who advise me upon a regulatory environment and further actions that could be taken about the way in which — —
Ms Wooldridge interjected.
Mr JENNINGS — Yes, I have — these matters should be regulated in the future.
To access full speeches and debates please visit http://hansard.parliament.vic.gov.au/isysadvsearch.html where you can search Victorian Hansard publications from 1991 onwards.