Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Amendment (Investigative Functions) Bill 2011

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) -- It is my pleasure to rise to speak on yet another election commitment to deliver for the first time in Victoria's history an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC). The Victorian coalition has introduced a series of historic reforms to restore integrity back into government, and I would like to remind the opposition again about the reform agenda we are undertaking. In our first year the coalition introduced a Public Interest Monitor, a Victorian Inspectorate, an independent FOI commissioner, a code of conduct for fundraising and reforms for tightening the lobbyist register, and now we have the introduction of IBAC.

IBAC's powers will be broad based and will cover the public service, Victoria Police, government department agencies, MPs and ministers, councillors, judges and staff. The IBAC will have powers to investigate and search; powers for officers to carry firearms, which I will cover a little bit later; powers to prosecute; and powers to restore integrity into government.

We have heard a lot tonight from members of the opposition, and my oh my, do they have short memories! They had 11 years to introduce a form of legislation into this house along the lines of which we have heard. In particular, their lead speaker, the member for Altona, dared to come in here tonight and try to lecture the government about how she might go about setting up a body such as an IBAC.

Ms Beattie -- She gave you a lesson.

Mr SOUTHWICK -- How would she know? In fact how would any opposition members know how they would go about setting up an IBAC, because they never attempted it? They had 11 years to have a go.

There was a public outcry and calls to develop an IBAC from many agencies, many members of the public, the opposition and many members who are here in this house, and they let it go through to the keeper. In the dying days of the last six months of the Labor government John Brumby finally decided that he might have a crack at it and see what he could do about reforming legislation. Of course, as we heard quite adequately from members of this side, he included many people to be covered by the proposed legislation but excluded members of Parliament. It is very convenient to set up a body to look into any untoward action and to exclude yourself -- very convenient.

This bill really shows the backbone of this government. In opposition it advocated strongly to restore scrutiny and integrity to government, and within the first year of being elected into government its members not only took up what they advocated in opposition but included its own members of Parliament and ministers. We have gone that far.

In fact we are including the Premier, because we on this side have nothing to hide. We believe the Victorian people deserve a government it can trust. Ensuring integrity and trust in the government should be the first pillar for the election of any government of the day. I am proud to be part of a government that is going about doing this.

We heard a lot from the opposition today. Never let the truth get in front of a good story, because we heard many good stories tonight. With regard to IBAC, we even heard the use of words like 'bazookas' and 'firearms', and we heard about all sorts of other things that all of a sudden investigative officers will magically be carrying. We heard that these officers did not have exactly the same powers when they were OPI (Office of Police Integrity) officers, but in fact we are giving exactly the same powers to IBAC officers as we gave to OPI officers. As I said, never let the truth get in front of a great story.

I love the use of great words like 'bazooka', and it is good the opposition loaded the bazooka, because you have to load one but you also have to know where to point it. You cannot turn around and point it at yourself, because guess what? You blow yourself up. If we look at what the opposition has done in the past when in government, we see many instances where an IBAC would have been able to clean up government and bring back integrity, honesty and respect.

I will refer to Labor's history -- the patchwork of legislation that it had when it was in government. In an interview with the Age a former special investigations monitor, retired judge David Jones, said, 'the OPI would be more effective if it operated under a single legal framework, rather than the patchwork of laws' rushed through by Labor.

Mr Jones said in the Age:

It has been more difficult for the OPI operationally because the powers were not as clearly defined as in other bodies ...

Those powers were not as clearly defined as those in other jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland, that we have heard about.

Further, we heard from Labor's great man, behind whom opposition members stood for many years -- that is, former Premier John Brumby. In describing the success of the OPI he is quoted in the Australian of 3 June 2010 as having stated:

There have been some other obviously high-profile cases ... where I think the public would say that its performance perhaps hasn't been up to scratch.

After lots of niggling and identifying many mishaps committed by the OPI, he finally acknowledged that we needed an alternative.

We had been saying that for 11 years. Thank God the Victorian public said that also, and that is why we are sitting on the government side and opposition members are now on the opposition side. Those members opposite speak about conspiracies and cover-ups. These are subjects that the Labor Party knows all about. A simple question is: why did the Labor Party take so long to act? Why did the Labor Party take so long to introduce an IBAC (Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission)? The Victorian people knew why, and that is why the Victorian people voted the Labor Party out of office.

We have a mandate, as the member for Altona quite rightly points out. Our mandate is quite simple: it is to restore integrity in government, to ensure that the public has a body it can trust, that we clean up all relevant bodies and ensure that when members of the community have a complaint they know it will be handled honestly with integrity and trust. As I said earlier, these are the first principles on which any government is elected. That is why all government members are sitting on this side of the chamber. Even opposition members would believe we are here for those reasons. That is why we need an IBAC. We also need an IBAC to ensure that we can all sit in this chamber and know we are all doing the right things, that we will continue to do so and that the public will trust what we are carrying out.

If we have nothing to hide and are all acting in the best interests of what we were elected to do, then none of us should experience any fear or favour from there being an IBAC. As we have stated many times, establishing an IBAC was more than an election commitment; it was something we advocated for a number of years.

Before being preselected I was very proud to attend a public forum which the now Minister for Crime Prevention conducted. Other jurisdictions were brought together to discuss how an IBAC could be implemented in Victoria. I am pleased that the minister has acted. He has carried out what he committed to in opposition. There is a very good form of legislation before us now. We are restoring integrity and honesty. We are ensuring that the Victorian public has a government it can trust and one that it elected to carry out a job it committed to. I commend the bill to the house.