Page 2145 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 2 August 2016
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was the extraordinary comment by the secretary of the Labor Party that “if we started throwing people out of the Labor Party for fines, we probably would not have many people left”.
The quotes are extensive and they cover people from all walks of life, from all political parties. We now have the Greens engaging and saying that there are concerns. We have Labor Party members saying that there are concerns. We have people from a broad range of media outlets saying that there is a smell around this government. The question is: how do we respond? I make the case that after 15 years governments do start to smell—and this one is rotten—and it is time for a change if we are going to restore integrity to the people of the ACT.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.34): The Greens have always campaigned for transparency and integrity in government. In 2009 we championed creating the position of independent arbiter to rule on the release of government documents. In 2013 we put the proposal for a commissioner for standards to oversee the conduct of members of this place with regard to the members code of conduct. And in 2016, this sitting, the Assembly will consider our nation-leading freedom of information legislation here in the Assembly.
We have always campaigned for clean elections and for banning donations from corporations to political parties. We were the only party who voted to keep our best-practice electoral donations laws, laws that were designed to stop corporations from donating to political parties. Political donations of the nature that the Canberra Liberals receive, like those from New South Wales developers, are the kinds of donations that the Greens do not support and do not accept.
Both the Liberals and the Labor Party overturned those strong donation laws. That vote went 16-1 in this place. Mrs Jones, Mr Coe and Mr Hanson all voted to get rid of these rules, just as every other member of this place did, whilst at the same time increasing the public subsidy for each party from $2 to $8 per vote.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR RATTENBURY: We do this because the Greens believe that the community deserves to trust in its political representatives and that democracy works best when the community has confidence in the government. That is what we believe. That is what we have always stood for and it is what we will continue to fight for. That is why I have announced on the weekend that we will bring forward to this election a policy to establish an independent integrity commissioner; one that has caused great interest in my Liberal colleagues across the chamber.
Mr Coe: Why do you need an ICAC? Tell us why you need an ICAC.
MR RATTENBURY: I will tell you exactly why we need it, Mr Coe. Be careful what you wish for. The independent integrity commission will be responsible for maintaining the standards of conduct, proprietary and ethics in the ACT’s public services, agencies and politicians. It will be given powers to conduct investigations into allegations of misconduct and be able to continue investigations when criminality
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