Greens spokesperson for democracy Senator Larissa Waters said 10 years after the Greens first called for a federal anti-corruption body to oversee parliamentarians and the public service, the Morrison Government has finally got on board \u2013 but there\u2019s so many catches.
\n\u201cThe Morrison Government\u2019s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is the ICAC you have when you\u2019re not really having an ICAC. It\u2019s the poor cousin of the state ICACs and basically a Clayton\u2019s ICAC,\u201d Senator Waters said.
\n\u201cThe powers this new body would have are so weak it won\u2019t change a thing, which is no doubt deliberate.
\n\u201cIt will be limited in what and who it can investigate, only looking into \u2018criminal\u2019 corruption and not regular, confidence-eroding, damaging corruption.
\n\u201cAnd in a move that will only serve to increase distrust in federal politicians, all investigations and hearings will be in secret and there will be no retrospectivity or complaints taken from outside of government departments and agencies.
\n\u201cThe Eddie Obeid investigation started with an anonymous tip off \u2013 this would not be allowed under the Government\u2019s model.
\n\u201cIt won\u2019t be allowed to make any findings of corruption, and can only gather evidence and refer it on to other agencies \u2013 it\u2019s like a glorified research assistant to the Department of Public Prosecutions.
\n\u201cIf the Government was serious about getting this done, it would have presented draft legislation. Instead it\u2019s just a discussion paper designed to appear like the government is doing something, when clearly they have no intention of acting before the election to set up this body.
\n\u201cAustralians won\u2019t be fooled – they will see straight through this sham body like they see through this sham government.
\n\u201cOur Greens bill for a national anti-corruption commission with teeth, and our plan to end the influence of big money over politics, it\u2019s what\u2019s needed to actually help clean up politics and end the cronyism and corruption that typifies politics these days.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Greens spokesperson for democracy Senator Larissa Waters said 10 years after the Greens first called for a federal anti-corruption body to oversee parliamentarians and the public service, the Morrison Government has finally got on board \u2013 but there\u2019s so many catches. \u201cThe Morrison Government\u2019s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is the ICAC you have when you\u2019re … Continue reading “A sham ICAC from a sham government”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}