Australia is only on Day 23 of the new Albanese Labor Government, but some timetables are emerging when it comes to promised reforms.
Attorney-General’s
Department,
Media
Centre,
ABC
Radio National – Breakfast with Patricia Karvelas,
Interview
with Australian Attorney-General Mark
Dreyfus QC MP,
Subjects:
National Anti-Corruption Commission; Bernard Collaery; Religious
Discrimination Legislation, 8
June 2022, transcript
excerpt:
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: There's little detail on what your anti-corruption
commission will look like. Will you be starting from scratch or will
you use independent MP Helen Haines' template?
MARK
DREYFUS: My department swung into action, Patricia, as soon as the
election result was clear. We've now got a task force of senior
officials headed by a Deputy Secretary completely devoted to ensuring
that we will legislate a national anti-corruption commission this
year. And the full resources of the department are now directed to
drafting the very best bill that we can bring to the Australian
Parliament.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: You say that because the Commonwealth is the last to
legislate an anti-corruption commission you can pick and choose the
best from the states and territories. Can you give me an idea on what
you see as best practice?
MARK
DREYFUS: There's a whole range of features that have been obviously
discussed over the last three years, a lot of it in response to the
inadequate model that the former government put forward. The
commission is going to be independent, it's going to be powerful,
it's going to have the powers of a Royal Commission. And some of the
contentious matters that we've looked at are the scope of the
commission. It's going to deal with serious and systemic corruption,
it's going to be able to receive allegations from a whole range of
sources, it's going to be able to, at its discretion, hold public
hearings and all of those are important features and, of course,
important differences from the former government's model. And it'll
be able to look into the past. That's another deficiency of the
former government's proposal. We think that it's completely
inappropriate to suggest that an anti-corruption commission, once set
up, would only be able to look at matters that arose after it was set
up. That can't be right. None of the state and territory
anti-corruption commissions function on that basis. They've all been
able to look back into the past at their discretion when they think
it's appropriate.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: Okay, so two questions on this; how far back into the past?
MARK
DREYFUS: That's going to be a matter for the commission.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: What's your view?
MARK
DREYFUS: No, I'm not going to express a view. It's not for us, as the
Government, to direct this commission…..
MARK
DREYFUS: ... and I'm not going to set limits on this commission. It's
independent. That's the key to it. It's not there to accept
instructions from the government of the day. It's there to be
independent.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: You say most of the hearings would be held in private. What
would justify a public hearing in your view? How will that be
articulated in the legislation for when the threshold is met for a
public hearing?
MARK
DREYFUS: There will be circumstances in which it is clearly in the
public interest for a public hearing to take place. The experience of
the state and territory commissions - because almost all of them have
got the power to hold public hearings - is that they are sparing in
the holding of those public hearings. They can, potentially, be very
useful. A number of the anti-corruption commissioners around
Australia with whom I've spoken about this have pointed out to me
that it's a way of building confidence in the activities of the
commission, if people can see it in operation. It's a way of showing
how the commission is going about its work. And very often the
holding of public hearings, some commissioners have told me, is
something that prompts others to come forward. It brings out evidence
if people hear of the investigation because the public hearing is
being reported on. But overwhelmingly the work of these commissions
is conducted by private hearings. They're sparing in their use of the
public hearings…..
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: When will the full design of the commission be announced?
MARK
DREYFUS: We're going to bring a bill to the Parliament. And I'm going
to be consulting before we do that, I'm certainly going to be
consulting with the crossbench. As you said, in your introduction,
the election of many independent members of the Parliament who
campaigned on integrity issues tells us about the level of public
support for this anti-corruption commission. It's a nation building
reform. We're treating it extremely seriously. It's, as I've said, a
paramount objective for the Government. I'm looking forward to
consulting right across the Parliament on the details of this.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: So, if you have it legislated by the end of the year
Attorney-General, does that mean it could be operational by next
year?
MARK
DREYFUS: We are going to legislate to create this anti-corruption
commission, put the legislation in place, by the end of this year.
That is the most clear commitment that we've given during the course
of the campaign when it might be operational. If the legislation is
passed by the end of this year it'll be a matter, as always for the
establishment of a Commonwealth agency, of finding premises, finding
staff appointing the commissioners, and then then it can get up and
running.
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: And what sort of timeframe might that might that look like?
MARK
DREYFUS: I'd be hoping around the middle of 2023…..
PATRICIA
KARVELAS: Just finally, prior to the election Labor said it would
seek to legislate a Religious Discrimination Act and scrap the
ability of schools to expel gay and transgender students at the same
time. But a timeline hasn't been given. Are you still committed to
religious discrimination legislation? And when would you do it?
MARK
DREYFUS: Very much so and it's something that we will do, as we've
said, in the course of this Parliament. Unlike the commitment on the
National Anti-Corruption Commission where we've put a timeline on it
by saying we are going to legislate by the end of this year, we
haven't put such a timeline on the religious discrimination
legislation that we will be bringing before the Parliament. But be
assured, Patricia, we are bringing religious discrimination
legislation before the Parliament. I have a very sharp memory of
being interviewed by you at about 7:30 in the morning after an all
night sitting for Federal Parliament earlier this year, when I think
we'd sat to about 5 am in the morning. And one of the things I said
to you in that interview was that, if we were successful at the
upcoming election, we would be returning to this subject and bringing
legislation to the Parliament on religious discrimination. That's why
we voted for the government's bill, even after our amendments, only
one of the amendments we supported, was successful. Because at its
core, there is an appropriate, at the core even of the government's
bill, there was an appropriate structure of anti-discrimination law,
bringing in a prohibition on discriminating against people on the
grounds of their religious beliefs. So I think we've made our
position clear. It is a matter again of drafting legislation, which
we will be doing and we will be bringing legislation to the
Parliament…...
