Bills

Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (Serious or Systemic Misconduct or Maladministration) Amendment (No 2) Bill

Second Reading

Debate resumed.

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for Consumer and Business Services, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (11:11): I will not traverse the ground that has been covered by previous speakers. Obviously, I agree with all the contributions on this side of the house. If I could, by reference, simply repeat everything that the last speaker for the government said because he has been able to summarise that in very practical, real terms. Can I say that all of us on this side of the house are deeply concerned that the relatives and friends of those people who may have been, and in some cases definitely have been, abused in this facility have the opportunity to see that there is a full and open inquiry into those matters.

I am absolutely convinced that the commissioner in undertaking this will thoroughly examine everything, will listen to everything they have to say and will leave no stone unturned on their behalf. Ultimately, as has just been observed, he will produce a public report wherein he will have had a chance to balance up all the allegations, all the responses, all the answers, and he will be in a position to satisfy, I think, the natural and entirely understandable feeling of the relatives of people who have been in that facility that the truth is discovered.

However, primarily what we are doing today here is a stunt. This is a stunt which has been basically seen as an opportunity for some of the young pups over the other side to take a race around the track chasing the plastic rabbit, and in those circumstances—

Mr PENGILLY: Point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Attorney-General referred to 'young pups' on this side, relating to—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: I ask he withdraw and apologise.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr PENGILLY: I will take you on any day, sunshine.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you accusing him of misleading the house? I must apologise I was speaking to the whip. I will listen to him carefully.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Madam Deputy Speaker, I can assure the member for Finniss I was not referring to him. Can we just observe two things which fell from the lips of the member for Hartley in his interesting contribution? The first one is he apparently has a copy of an interim report. We would all like to know a great deal more about that because the interim report is something which, as I understand it, might have been protected by various legal matters. It would be very interesting anyway and I look forward to him finding an explanation for that. I hope the commissioner reads this Hansard because he will be very interested in that, too.

The other thing is that the member for Hartley insisted on referring to what the commissioner is doing as a 'trial'. That is revealing because this is not a trial actually. Nobody is charged with anything. Nobody is actually facing any legal proceedings. There is a process in train at the moment to ascertain the truth of certain matters. It is not a trial. Nobody is on trial. Again, it is interesting, and I am sure Commissioner Lander will find reading his contribution very, very interesting.

The other reason this is a stunt, of course, is that as recently as last year, after the Gillman inquiry, this very matter of open inquiries was ventilated by the commissioner. It was considered by both houses of the parliament and both houses resolved that that particular state of affairs as it presently exists would not be disturbed.

I invite anyone to read the Hon. Rob Lucas' contributions. They are very interesting, as they always are. There are a few little Delphic comments where one can read between the lines. Perhaps it is because the Hon. Rob Lucas has had the experience of being a minister in a government that he is wary of foolish steps that appear to cause excitement with the fourth estate but do not lead towards good government. Even the member for Bragg, who, as we know, is not shy in saying a few things from time to time, did not agitate the issue of public hearings when this came up last time and was happy to see the bill go through as it was.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order on my left!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: It was September last year. Check it yourselves. Then we had the opportunistic stunt by the member for Bragg and others to bring this thing forward a couple of weeks ago in this place—

Mr Gardner: You voted to allow it to proceed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, member for Morialta!

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —which was defeated, and of course, because they did not get sufficient public attention out of that and because the member for Finniss and the other young people over there did not get an opportunity to ventilate their views, they thought they would do it again to see whether doing it a second time would make it more interesting.

I want to finish with two points. Point No. 1 is that, understandably, in the minds of most people who are citizens of South Australia, partly because of the attitude of the commissioner himself and partly because of the attitude fostered by those opposite and the fourth estate, there is zero distinction in the public mind between the commissioner conducting a corruption inquiry using all the coercive powers as commissioner against corruption and the commissioner undertaking an inquiry into maladministration, in which case he is using the powers of the Ombudsman and acting in a matter that the Ombudsman otherwise would have been acting in.

There is no distinction in the public mind. Therefore everybody who is called, everybody who attends, everybody who has anything to do with it is, as far as the public is concerned, dragged in front of ICAC whether they be a target, whether they be a witness or whether they simply be there to deliver documents. I get to this point: there may well be public servants or other people, perhaps quite junior people, who have very important information about this case.

There may be people who are scared to come forward to tell the commissioner stuff they know that could actually go right to the heart of this matter. Those people would not relish the opportunity of being dragged in front of ICAC, appearing in front of ICAC, being on the front page of the newspaper or being filmed going into and out of a building by the television news. Those people would find that quite intimidating and that is the reason we have particular laws about whistleblowers. What two things does the law say you cannot do to whistleblowers? (1) is to identify them in public and (2) is to victimise them. Those are the two things you cannot do to a whistleblower.

What those opposite want to do is to say to every potential whistleblower in this case, 'We are going to blow your cover. We are going to blow you out of the water, if you poke your head up to give information about this case, if you dare come out because you've got a nice quiet place when nobody knows what you know, you're the only one who knows, and you poke your head up and give some information. You will be the sensation of the evening on the news.' Well, there is zero public interest in that—zero. Everybody knows the people who will be coming before the commissioner. I am more interested in the people who should be coming but who may not.

This is a foolish stunt, it is contrary to good public policy, and it will actually discourage the many perhaps otherwise unknown people from coming forward and telling the commissioner what they know, and that would be an extremely bad outcome for the families in this case. This should be voted down again and I hope we never hear any more of it.

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (11:20): I thank all members of the house for their contribution on this important bill that has been brought to our house. This government has been in power for too long. They are tired, they are dysfunctional, they are divided and they have been a failure to the people of South Australia. In the last few months, we have seen the full—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Mr MARSHALL: —catastrophic consequences of this dysfunctional government. While they sit laughing opposite, the Oakden crisis has really been emblematic of the dysfunction and disregard that this government has had for an extended period of time. All they have left now is spin and cover-up, spin and cover-up. We see this every day, their massive spin machine out there, paid for by the taxpayers of this state, and cover-up of all their problems over an extended period of time. This has now become a pattern for this government. Let's not forget that it is not just this bill before the house at the moment but it is also bills that have been introduced and rejected by this government.

The Liberal Party's position on shield laws were rejected by this government and rejected by this Attorney-General. Our position of providing whistleblower protections in South Australia were, again, rejected by this government and rejected by this Attorney-General, and again we see this pattern continuing—cover-up. This government is now presiding over a toxic culture of cover-up and secrecy, which must be brought to an end. I have heard the arguments from those opposite. What we have had so far this morning is fake sympathy for the families and fake regard for the very deliberate recommendations of the ICAC.

What we really need now to see is action, not all this sympathy, not all this regard, but them actually taking some action. Now is the time of reckoning. We see those opposite and of course most disappointing of all is the Attorney-General, who recently awarded himself an SC. You would think that he would know better than to come into this parliament and start catastrophising the potential implications of giving the ICAC commissioner discretion to hold open hearings. All we heard from those opposite was their catastrophising a situation where apparently all public servants were going to have all their dealings aired in public. What a load of rubbish.

This is the considered recommendation of Bruce Lander QC, an eminent legal mind in South Australia, who has considered all these matters and this is his recommendation, which he has asked the parliament of South Australia to provide him with, and the government says no. Well, quite frankly, no further fake sympathy, no further fake regard, now is the time for action. Now is the time that the government must listen to the ICAC commissioner, listen to the families and end this toxic culture of cover-up and secrecy.

The house divided on the second reading:

Ayes 17

Noes 21

Majority 4

Second reading thus negatived.