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Australian Greens Call for Anti-Corruption Body |
| Source: |
australianetworknews.com |
| Source Date: |
Thursday, May 17, 2012 |
| Focus: |
ICT for MDGs
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| Country: |
Australia |
| Created: |
May 21, 2012 |
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The Greens say public confidence in Australia's Parliament is so low it will move to set up a national anti-corruption organisation.
Greens leader Christine Milne insists it is not a knee-jerk reaction to the controversy surrounding Parliamentary Speaker Peter Slipper and suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson.
Senator Milne says a simple code of conduct will not go far enough and she is planning to re-introduce a bill for a national integrity commission when Parliament resumes.
She says a number of states have had successful anti-corruption bodies for many years, and a national body would oversee politicians, their staff and the public service.
"It is not a knee-jerk reaction to what happened to Peter Slipper or Craig Thomson," she said.
"This is about saying 'let's learn from the situation we've got ourselves into and let's have a serious body that can give the public confidence we won't have the same situation arise in the future'."
Senator Milne says public confidence in the Parliament needs to be restored after Mr Slipper was forced to stand aside to allow an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and taxi-voucher fraud, and Mr Thomson was suspended from the Labor Party because of credit card misuse allegations against him.
"Really, we have had this oversight of the police at the federal level for a long time but we have never had it over the public service or over the parliamentarians," she said.
"I think we've got to the point where the community is saying 'look, we need to rebuild public confidence in our parliament and the public service."
She says it would have to be decided how much power the commission would have and whether it would be able to conduct forensic evidence like intercepting phone calls.
"The level of power is something we would like to hear from in terms of the Senate inquiry," she said.
"Let's have a proper analysis and get to a piece of legislation that has tri-partite support."
The establishment of a parliamentary integrity commission and a code of conduct was part of the Greens' deal to support Julia Gillard's Government in 2010.
Ms Milne says they would have liked to see the Government make good on the deal sooner.
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