Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Committees
Privileges Committee
Committees
Privileges Committee
Reference
Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (09:58): I move:
That this house:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) investigation into allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including members of Parliament, known as Operation Watts, commenced in 2020;
(b) IBAC, despite acknowledging at public hearings that the practice of branch stacking had been endemic in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for generations across all the factions, and despite the Legislative Council resolving to request that their investigation be broadened to include all sections of the ALP, has only examined the Moderate Labor faction of the Victorian branch of the ALP during this investigation;
(2) further notes that:
(a) IBAC is an investigative body that does not have the power to impose sanctions;
(b) potential breaches of codes of conduct of members of Parliament are matters that only the Parliament through the Privileges Committee can deal with;
(c) unless the Privileges Committee commences an inquiry immediately it will not have time to conduct an inquiry and report its findings to the house;
(3) requires the Privileges Committee to inquire into and report to the house, by no later than Thursday, 18 August 2022, on matters raised relating to the Honourable Adem Somyurek MLC at the IBAC Operation Watts public hearings regarding the use of government resources, including the use of electorate office and ministerial staff, and in undertaking this inquiry requires the committee to:
(a) seek input from IBAC and examine any other matter raised at the IBAC Operation Watts public hearings that the committee considers relevant;
(b) take evidence from all electorate officers and ministerial staff who have worked with Mr Somyurek from 2017;
(c) ensure that the investigation includes, but is not limited to, the following topics that IBAC showed interest in during their public hearings, being that Mr Somyurek:
(i) employed staff based on factional affiliation;
(ii) pressured members of Parliament to employ activists aligned to his faction;
(iii) directed staff members to do factional work during office hours;
(iv) allowed staff members to do factional work during office hours;
(v) employed staff to full entitlement when, according to IBAC, his electorate office did not have sufficient work;
(vi) authorised activists to use electoral roll information from the Victorian Electoral Commission to check the accuracy of membership applicants to the party;
(vii) breached money-for-value considerations in employing casual staff;
(viii) employed people of cultural backgrounds who IBAC appears to think are not capable of doing officework;
(ix) kept a database of members according to factional alignment and cultural identity;
(x) allowed staff to keep a database of members according to factional alignment and cultural identity; and
(d) conduct a transparent and public investigation.
I take this extraordinary step—and I do not think it has ever been done in Parliament before—of referring myself via a motion to the Privileges Committee. I do so because literally today is the last day we have got for two years of work—I am not going to call it hard work—by IBAC. So unless we act today, the $15 million that they have misspent on this inquiry will have gone to waste, because we come back on 2 August, and even if they table the report on 2 August—and that is not guaranteed; I am not sure that they will—that is not going to be enough time. Our last sitting day is 15 September, so you cannot have an inquiry that is going to inquire, deliberate and then make recommendations to the house. It is just not going to happen—2 August is even too late, and I do not think they will have it by 2 August. So today is literally the last day we have got to see what IBAC have actually come back with. IBAC is not a court. This Parliament is a court. IBAC is an investigative body. They have done their investigation, so I would hope that for the sake of taxpayers money people support this motion and we can get this investigated.
In terms of why I am confident that these matters are breaches of the members code of conduct, not legislation, let me take you through the only area of legislation—or criminal law, perhaps—that was up for debate. I have to go back to red shirts with this, and that is section 30, subsection (4), of the Parliamentary Administration Act 2005. Let me just refresh you as to what red shirts was—and that set the bar, which is why I keep going there. That set the bar on what criminal conduct was, and that bar was pretty high, I can tell you, based on red shirts. The red shirts was all about 25 Labor MPs giving over their entitlements to the leader of the upper house for his staff to manage staff members, where they signed timesheets and those members of staff sat in campaign offices campaigning for the Australian Labor Party—25 of them. And they were managed by John Lenders’s electoral officer. That is the bar that has been set for section 30, subsection (4).
The Ombudsman tested her jurisdiction with the Supreme Court. Then she ended up at the High Court because the government challenged. She came back; she did the inquiry. The government’s defence was subsection (4) of section 30, which says—and I do not have the words with me—the duties and responsibilities of an electorate officer will be determined by the MP themselves. The Ombudsman was a bit sceptical. She went back to the original act from 2013 and said there must be some form of words there which indicate that the intent of the legislation would not have been as broad as that but narrower. She came back and said she did not find any such words in the original legislation. Then she came back and reported that the Members Guide specifically disallows or prohibits MPs’ staff from engaging in party-political work and rules out party-political campaigning as well. So the Ombudsman came back and said that there was nothing she could do. Regulation trumps the Members Guide, and that is the way it is—‘It is an artifice’, but she said there was nothing she could do. So she got a lot of legal expertise on this when she came back with that.
The government further argued that the Members Guide is also ultra vires because subsection (2) gives effect to the Members Guide. The starting words in subsection (4) say, ‘Despite subsection (2)’, the electorate officers’ duties and responsibilities will be directed by the MP. So the government argued that the Members Guide was ultra vires, and they did that because that is what is in the legislation. Now, I do not say that to protect the legislation. In fact the legislation does need to be changed, but equally when you change the legislation you need to be aware that there is a grey area and we can use words like ‘predominant purpose’ and things like that, because you cannot have a systematic rort going unpunished. You just cannot, and that is what has happened in red shirts.
That is the bar. Now, let me put that into a factional frame for you. Red shirts is equivalent to me ringing up 25 MPs of the right in the Labor Party and saying to them: ‘Right, everyone is going to give up a staff member. You are going to sign timesheets for six months in advance, and all your staff are going to be managed by my staff. They are going to sit in the factional headquarters, and they are going to ring the 17 700 Labor Party members and lobby them for them to join my faction, the right, because we have got to take the party away from these Socialist Left no-gooders’. That is what the equivalent is—or when you have finished doing that, ring the electorate, get them to join the party and join the right so we can knock off the Socialist Left. Even that would not have been punished. So do not tell me IBAC, when they had a look at this, could not read legislation. You are talking about a pre-eminent lawyer, apparently, who to me showed no signs of being as good as everyone says he is. He looks more like Biden, sort of fluffing around.
Anyway, IBAC should have known this and would have known this; they would have seen it straightaway. It did not take me to walk in there on day one and just smack them down and say, ‘Right, this is how it is, guys’. They know. They would have taken one look at that. They would have had the myriad legal advice that was presented to them. They did not have to reinvent the wheel; it was all there for them. But they chose to go to a public inquiry, and it took me, supposedly, to inform them of what the legislation is and what the interpretation of the legislation is.
Anyway, I will go past that now, having dispatched that. Let us look at where we think, based on a reading of the transcripts by me and my lawyers, they are going—all these worst-case scenarios that could go down. We believe there are 10 things that might go down in terms of breaches of the members code of conduct. They are, one, employment of staff based on factional considerations and not merits—I will come back to that in a second. Putting pressure on MPs to employ activists—absolutely not. One person I did, and that was because of the dodgy Suleymans because they were extorting and blackmailing me. You know what the greatest joke is in this? They are doing a branch-stacking inquiry. The Suleymans are prospering, having access to everyone else’s slush funds and paying their memberships. So that is what a joke this IBAC inquiry is. The Suleymans are actually prospering from this—the biggest branch stackers, the biggest crooks in Australia. Hakki Suleyman is having a field day. I am informed he will be the Secretary of the Department of Education and Training—he is the next deputy secretary. So that is going to be a hoot too.
Directing staff members to do factional work during office hours—well, they had access to my emails of 20 years, WhatsApp messages and text messages of seven years. They intercepted my telephone calls—I do not know why they did that, by the way, for a branch-stacking inquiry—and then they played them at the public hearings. Then they had my best friends in politics actively for one year recording me, trying to compromise me, yet they have got some random instances of people running errands. And by the way, those people that were running errands—I am not sure they were doing it because I directed them to. I think they were doing it themselves. But, again, let us see if that passes the pub test, okay? It is up to the Privileges Committee to determine that.
This is a new one too: allowing staff to do factional work. This is a new one. Apparently you are meant to be looking over your staff as they are on the computer or whatever. So it is going to be interesting to see what the Privileges Committee think of that. According to this bar, MPs need to be sitting there, watching over the electorate officers, making sure everything they do is consistent with their public duties. So if they are out there making doctors appointments, doing their banking online or surfing the internet—I must admit, I have not told people not to do a whole range of things, because I think it is common sense. I have not told them not to surf the internet for porn. I have not told them not to gamble on the internet. I have not told them not to do a whole bunch of stuff. But I would expect that they would be smart enough to do the right thing. So ‘allowing staff’ is also an interesting part which the Privileges Committee should look at.
Employing staff to full entitlement is interesting too. We have got two positions, I think; we are entitled to two positions. If you crunch the numbers, IBAC’s view is: well, if you are not getting enough throughput in your office, you should be sacking staff. You can imagine sitting there and saying, ‘Listen, come in, John. I need to speak to you. This week we’ve only had a certain amount of people come through the office. I’m going to pay you for only three days of work, but tomorrow I’m off to New York, London, Tokyo, on a first-class trip’. It is okay, apparently, that I can sack this bloke for half a day, half a position, and then go off to fly across the world on a first-class trip. Come on. This is nonsense. He says, ‘What about my mortgage?’. I say, ‘Stiff. You can work that out whilst I fly off first class around the world’. Anyway, these are matters that are to be determined by the Privileges Committee.
Authorised activists to use the electoral roll—I still do not know what that is about, because it is a public roll. It is a public document, the electoral roll. I am not sure what they were talking about. This is the problem when you get people that are not well versed in politics and do not know the political system—and they should. This is one of the problems we have got. Our lawyers—that I have found—are completely ignorant of the political system. They thumb their noses at it. No, it is important. Politicians make legislation for you to interpret. Then you have got employing people, cultural diversity—they do not like that. There is also ‘kept a database of members according to factional alignment’—yes. These are things that will be determined.
Let us get onto some of the big issues based on these 10 items, understanding, then, ‘money for value’. What they hang their hat on is money for value. When we were in opposition as the Labor Party, I wrote the opposition’s procurement policy. I know all about value for money. Value for money is not just about least-cost alternatives. If this thing costs $50 but will only last for a year and you can get it down the road for $75 but it will last you five years, value for money dictates that you buy this. It is more durable. It is about durability; it is about being fit for purpose; it is about a whole bunch of other items that are given specific weighting.
But in our set of circumstances it is about contractual obligations. It is about an MP doing printing. The printing might be worth $10 000 on its market value, but the MP comes back with an invoice for $15 000. Clearly now, with the value-for-money provision in the rules, someone in the Department of Parliamentary Services can say, ‘No, no. That’s not value for money. The market price for this printing is $10 000, not $15 000, so we are not going to allow you to charge $15 000 for a printing job with a market value of $10 000’. That is a sound policy. Previously you could just say, ‘Oh, well, that’s what it is. That’s what they’re charging’ and then pocket perhaps $5000. So it was a good move to bring value for money in. But it is not for staff. There is no negotiation with wages. There is negotiation but not at the MP level. There are set wages, so it has got nothing to do with value for money, and they do not get that—IBAC just do not seem to understand that. Well, let the Privileges Committee determine who is right on this.
Then you have got the issue of merit versus factional appointments. What they completely do not get is section 27 of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, which gives a carve-out to MPs to hire based on political ideology, values and trust. That is what gives effect to political appointments. They did not even understand the concept of political appointments versus appointments based on merit to the public service. Whether you like it or not—and it is unsavoury too—every liberal democracy in the world has political appointments, because you have to. If you do not have political appointments, the chances are that you are not a liberal democracy; you are probably a dictatorship. Every liberal democracy has political appointments. They separate that from the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is all about merit. It has to be about merit. It is about frank, fearless, expert advice coming in. Right, President? It is about frank, fearless, expert advice. It is about continuity. It is about corporate memory. It is not a spoils system where with a change of government you change all the expertise and there is no corporate memory left. You have to retain that corporate memory. It has to be based on meritocracy.
If you start putting political apparatchiks in there, when you change your government, you lose all the expertise, because why should the other party coming into government keep apparatchiks from another party? That is a red line that cannot be crossed. But throughout the world in every liberal democracy, political appointments are something that we are all going to have to cop. That is why when you lose your seat as an MP your staff lose their jobs. The incoming MP brings their own staff in. It does not happen in any other profession. That is why when a government changes the thousands of political appointments also lose their jobs.
The way I look at it is this, it is not meritocracy. If your political staff are not doing their jobs properly, you lose as an MP. You get punished at the ballot box. If you are a minister employing a factional operative that is not briefing you well and you have two bad question times, you are probably going to be out the third time. Your middle stump is going to get knocked out. So there is a great incentive to be briefed properly and to employ good staff. There is a difference between political operatives, political appointments and ministerial appointments, and that is something that IBAC does not understand. Again, that has been given effect by section 27 of the Equal Opportunity Act. They seem to ignore that. They did not want to talk about that.
The other thing here too is in terms of our staff: politics is 24/7. We need to change section 30(4), because it cannot be so broad that you can get away with those systematic rorts like red shirts—because you still can. We have not changed that. The government just changed it so that you cannot campaign but deliberately did not tighten it up to stop any other activity. There is a reason for that—because MPs’ officers do engage in the party. It is impossible not to. Members come in, so electorate officers should not be speaking to members? It means they are not doing their public duties but are doing factional work if members of the party come in? That needs to be reformed and tightened up with words like ‘predominant purpose’. The pub test, proportionality, needs to be introduced; otherwise, as the legislation reads now, you actually can do a systematic rort of the system.
Equally what IBAC could not have deliberated on, and MPs can, is the custom and practice that guides where the legislation is vague. Politics is 24/7. How many times do MPs sit here at night and speak to their electorate officers? I do. You might be in meetings all day and cannot return the telephone call of your electorate officer. You get home, and you return the call at 7 o’clock. So based on what IBAC is saying, the electorate officers should be keeping a minute-by-minute—like a lawyer—time sheet of how long you have spoken to them. I can tell you, if they do that, the taxpayer is going to be worse off, because you would occasionally speak to your electorate officers for an hour, 2 hours—or your ministerial advisers; they do a lot of work outside of office hours. What about going to functions—accompanying you to functions after hours, on weekends or in the mornings for breakfast meetings or representing you? So politics is 24/7. They are not filling out time sheets by the minute, and if they did I think the public purse would be worse off. There is that grey area. There is that discretion. There has got to be sensible legislation. Section 30(4) probably does need to be reformed, but there needs to be a form of words where you cut out systematic rorting of the system. But equally you do not have IBAC sticking their noses into something they do not belong in.
In summing up, if you are not voting for this, what you are voting for is two years of taxpayers money being wasted on an inquiry that is actually not going to see the light of day. If you hate me, you think I am dirty, you think I am dodgy, I get to walk out of this place with one finger stuck up at the Parliament saying, ‘I’ve made it. I got away with it’. But if you are like me—from my perspective I know I have done nothing wrong. I have always complied with legislation, I have complied with custom and practice, and I am always guided by the Department of Parliamentary Services. I have done nothing wrong. So what I want to see is the all clear when I walk out of this place. This is the last chance. If this is not passed today, this inquiry is not ever going to happen.
Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:19): It is good to rise to make a contribution on this important motion today. It is a motion that members of the opposition will be supporting. In his motion Mr Somyurek calls on this house to note that:
… the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s (IBAC) investigation into allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers, including members of Parliament, known as Operation Watts, commenced in 2020 …
He urges the house to note that IBAC has acknowledged:
… at public hearings that the practice of branch stacking had been endemic in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for generations …
That is the wording of section (1)(b) of Mr Somyurek’s motion. Then over the page he steps through a whole series of issues that, most unusually for a motion of this type in our house, are very specific to him and that he would like to see referred to the Privileges Committee.
It is a good thing that in Victoria we have a broad-based anti-corruption commission, and there are matters that are entirely appropriate for IBAC to investigate. IBAC is doing that work; that is appropriate. There are also matters here—I agree with Mr Somyurek—that are appropriate for the Privileges Committee to investigate. Noting that the house is yet to hear how members of the government seek to respond to this motion, I would urge the government to join with members of the crossbench and the opposition in supporting this motion today, first and foremost in the interests of good government here in Victoria.
We heard a message loud and clear at the federal election just a few weeks ago that the electorate cares deeply about issues of integrity in government. I agree with Mr Somyurek that it has been a stunning thing that the issue of the red shirts rorts has on the face of it taken so little paint, electorally, off the Andrews Labor government. We have learned more and more about those processes since Mr Somyurek found himself on the crossbench, and what happened there was undoubtedly illegal—appalling practices that have been called out by numerous integrity bodies. But since then there have been very serious allegations from Mr Somyurek but also from numerous others about ongoing corrupt practices in the Victorian government. Mr Hayes and Mr Somyurek have both today spoken passionately about the politicisation of the Victorian public service, for example—a matter that this house, dominated as it is by the Victorian branch of the Labor Party, has referred to the Ombudsman for further investigation.
Here in Victoria we have the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission currently looking into allegedly corrupt practices by members of the Andrews government. We have the Ombudsman looking into practices that on the face of it lack all integrity. Mr Somyurek has said previously in this place that sometimes when he was a senior cabinet minister he would go to meetings with public servants and it very much appeared as if he was at a meeting of the Victorian ALP state conference. These matters are not simply to be dismissed, and my argument to the government would be that they should not dismiss them, because it is in their own interests to continue to shine a light on these practices so that before November they can seek to convince members of the Victorian public that these practices are behind them. Unless this motion succeeds and unless we see support that we have not seen in the past from members of the Andrews Labor government for the numerous ongoing investigations into their allegedly corrupt practices, then good government will suffer.
Here is just one example. In the last year Victoria has had three ministers for child protection. Today in this house a damning report from the Auditor-General was tabled on kinship care, and I will have more to say about that publicly later on today. I spoke yesterday again about an important bill—a bill that the government said was important—that has languished in this Parliament for 251 days today and the government refuses to bring back. We have seen the number of unallocated cases of kids in care—kids known to have experienced abuse and neglect who have never received support—skyrocket since Mr Donnellan was the minister. Mr Donnellan was forced to resign because by his own admission he breached ALP rules. Because of that, the child protection portfolio—in my view one of the most important portfolios in government—was bumped to Mr Wynne, who by all reports is a very nice guy. He is the Minister for Planning. Then it got bumped to Mr Carbines, and in the process, as the Auditor-General has said, our most vulnerable children have been forgotten.
So integrity matters. It is not some esoteric topic. It matters to the electorate—we saw that some weeks ago. It matters for basic service delivery. I have lost track now of the number of senior Andrews Labor government ministers who have lost their jobs in the very short period of time that I have been here in the Parliament. Whether it is issues of waste or whether it is issues of failures of basic service delivery for our most vulnerable children, across the board we are seeing failures that relate directly back to practices within the Andrews Labor government that lack integrity. My fear is that unless the government supports this motion, unless this government changes its spots, as it were, and shows overt support for the various different actions that are underway through our independent bodies to investigate, yes, the government, we will see more division in the Victorian community. We are seeing basic breakdowns in service provision related to a lack of integrity, like in child protection, with three ministers in a year. We are also seeing an ongoing fracturing of the Victorian community. Ms Taylor and I spent two important days—very important days—together last week on an inquiry into extremism, and what we heard time and time again in public testimony and through the submissions that we received is that Victorians are driven to division. Victorians are driven to extreme positions because of a range of factors, but a very important legitimising factor—according to some witnesses the most important legitimising factor—for extremism is a lack of integrity in government.
So we must do better as a Parliament and, yes, the Andrews Labor government must do better to seek to mount an argument to the community well in advance, for the good of the government, of the election in November that it has changed, that it recognises the corrupt practices that we have already seen reported by IBAC and the Ombudsman and that it is willing to see—indeed it is desirous, keenly desirous of seeing—a light shone upon these issues. If they fail to support this motion today, the clear message to the Victorian community is, as we saw through the actions of the Labor chair of an important inquiry recently, that they are deliberately acting to once again suppress the release of important information regarding their conduct. I fear that is the way the government will go, but I urge them not to in their own best interests and in the interests of the Victorian community.
Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:27): After the accusations of branch stacking came to light, along with sexist and homophobic comments made by Mr Somyurek, the Premier immediately sacked Mr Somyurek. Further to Mr Somyurek being sacked from the ministry and the parliamentary Labor Party, the Premier asked Labor’s national executive to expel him from the party, and the government referred the matter to IBAC and Victoria Police.
There is nothing new about this motion. These matters are already under investigation by IBAC. Mr Somyurek has made a few contributions in this chamber recently, unsuccessfully attempting to attack IBAC’s reputation. This is in fact the third contribution that Mr Somyurek has made to the chamber on the same subject matter. In fact it would seem Mr Somyurek is dissatisfied that he no longer has a public platform through the IBAC process and is seeking to cultivate a new soapbox via public hearings of the Privileges Committee.
If Mr Somyurek believes that politicians will do a better job of investigating this matter than the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, then the government is happy to let this motion through. The government remains steadfast in its belief in the integrity and capacity of IBAC to investigate serious matters such as those that Mr Somyurek is currently being investigated for. It is worth noting that in letting this motion through the government harbours concerns about how the motion directs the manner of the hearings in a highly unusual way and would encourage the Privileges Committee to assert their independence in the manner in which they deal with some elements of Mr Somyurek’s motion.
Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) (10:29): I rise to support Mr Somyurek’s motion today. I listened very carefully to Ms Taylor’s proposition. I am not exactly sure where the government is coming from or indeed where it is going on this occasion, but that seems to be the way of the world on this particular issue.
I have been watching the IBAC investigation for quite some time, and it has to be said that it seems to me to be somewhat unbalanced. There is an imbalance in the investigation. There are apparently two factions in the ALP: there is the Socialist Left and there is the right. There may be a few others along the way, but they are broadly the same thing. IBAC seems to be investigating one faction for doing what we all know both factions have been doing for years. Mr Somyurek has told us what the left have been doing for years. They are experts at branch stacking. The Premier stands accused of this very thing. Now, it seems to me that if IBAC is serious, if IBAC is fair dinkum, if IBAC wants to keep its credibility in place, it will investigate both sides. Who is it getting its directions from? Who is it getting its instructions from?
Mr FINN: Who? Well, I do not think it is from the DLP, Mr Leane. I can assure you that. No, I think it might be coming from an old mate of yours, a bloke called Daniel Andrews—I am not sure if I am allowed to use that name—the Premier, the Premier of this state, who likes to control everything and everyone. And the people of Victoria are asking the question: does the Premier of Victoria control IBAC? Has the Premier of Victoria given IBAC instructions and they are indeed following them? That is the question, the biggest question in this whole thing.
Sure, we want to get to the bottom of branch stacking; we want to get to the bottom of a whole range of things that we all know have been going on for donkey’s years. You know, that would be great. But the biggest issue in this is the role of the Premier in this IBAC investigation. That is the biggest question. That is the biggest issue. In fact if we had a body which could investigate IBAC, I would suggest an investigation, because clearly they are going down the same track as the Premier in trying to destroy the right wing of the ALP. Now, I warmly welcome any members of the right wing of the ALP to come and join the DLP. They would be very, very welcome. We would get on very well. We would get on famously in many instances.
But what we are seeing here in Victoria at the moment worries the hell out of me. You know, I have been in absolute stunned amazement over the last couple of years at the strength, the stranglehold, that the Premier has on just about everything. From the police force right through, he is controlling everything, and the question now is: is the Premier directing IBAC? Now, if that is happening—and it appears that it could be happening—we have got one of the greatest cases of corruption in the history of this nation. If IBAC is taking instructions from a politician, the Premier of this state, then we have got a major issue. I would like to know: if they are not taking instructions from the Premier, why are they only investigating one faction of the ALP? Why aren’t they touching on the Socialist Left? I have been out in the western suburbs, I know the ALP backwards and I know some of the shysters in the ALP—
Mr FINN: Well, the Suleymans—I think they are in their own faction, to tell you the truth. If we start talking about the Suleymans, we could be here all day, let me assure you. I certainly do not have enough time for that, unfortunately, but maybe another time. But we all know that there has been an enormous branch-stacking effort going on from the Socialist Left in a war with the right. If there was not a war going on, why would the right be fighting it? Indeed who would they be fighting?
This motion is extremely important. We do not want to go to the election—we do not want this Parliament to finish its time—without all of these questions being examined and answered. It is so important that we do that, because the dark cloud hanging over this government, hanging over this Parliament right now, is something that does not add to the credibility of our political system. Dr Bach has said, as we stand here—or as I stand here and as you sit here—right now, we have a situation where the vast majority of Victorians and the vast majority of Australians think we are all crooks. They think we are all crooks. That to my way of thinking is a tragedy because I know we are not all crooks. I could name a couple that probably are, but I will not on this occasion. But that is unfortunately the attitude that people have towards us. Does anybody seriously think that allowing this to be just brushed under the carpet by the proroguing of Parliament is going to help with the public perception of politicians and our political system? Quite the opposite. So it is vitally important that this matter is properly examined while the Parliament is still in session and whilst we can get a final report on what has occurred here. As I say, we know roughly what has happened, but we need it confirmed by IBAC.
I have travelled overseas and interstate with Mr Somyurek on a number of occasions. He must have a hell of a phone bill. That is all I can say, because he spent, in my experience, a hell of a lot of time on the phone—and I do not think he was ringing his family on every occasion. We know, and he has quite openly admitted, that he has been involved in factional manoeuvrings and involved in them for a very long time, but what we now need to know is what role the Premier has taken in all of this, what role the Socialist Left has had in it and what sort of public money the Socialist Left has used to support its branch-stacking efforts and its attempts to—successfully, so it would seem—control the ALP. It is quite extraordinary that in the midst of all of this we have a situation where the Socialist Left have just blown the right out of the water, and nobody is saying anything. It is all very hush-hush. You know, the questions that are being asked around the place are just hanging in the air, and we cannot let that happen. We need those questions answered, and the referral to the Privileges Committee, I believe, will go some way towards answering those questions.
I support the motion put forward by Mr Somyurek. I hope that the motion, if passed today, will clear the air of a number of questions, because clearly IBAC is not capable of clearing the air. The questions and the concerns that Victorians have must have attention turned to them, because it is a matter of great concern—the utmost concern—that this occurs and is not allowed to just pass. It cannot be allowed to happen. For those reasons, I very strongly support the motion put forward by Mr Somyurek today.
Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (10:38): I too rise today to support Mr Somyurek’s motion that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, which is IBAC, investigate the allegations of seriously corrupt conduct involving Victorian public officers and members of Parliament and that we also have an inquiry that goes to the Privileges Committee which commences immediately and reports back to this Parliament by August so that the community feels that we can possibly conduct a transparent and public inquiry.
For me, listening to members, I am pleased to hear that the government will allow this inquiry because I do feel that the community has always said that they just want members of Parliament and this Parliament to be accountable and to be transparent and in that way to have public inquiries to make sure. If you have nothing to hide, you should actually front up to these inquiries and actually be able to answer questions—hand on heart. There are many questions that my residents have asked during this time. Last year while they were watching the IBAC inquiry and watching Mr Somyurek being questioned they all wanted to know why Mr Andrews, our Premier, was not there, and to find out that he possibly was questioned in private is just not right. The community wanted it to be public. Mr Andrews continually did his daily Dans. He was quite happy every day for an hour plus to stand publicly and answer questions from the media, but why didn’t Mr Andrews front up publicly to IBAC and have all of those questions of the commissioner’s answered before the Victorian public? This time around I do hope that the Privileges Committee actually bring Mr Andrews in front of them and ask the questions that everybody wants answered. They want these questions to be answered.
Mr Somyurek has been very forthright about his shortcomings. He has also been very public and extremely transparent about his displeasure and his feeling that IBAC should have had that balance of the left and the right of the ALP and had them both investigated—not just the right but the left and every other faction that the ALP has, which are many. Everybody in the Victorian community wants to see Mr Andrews in front of IBAC. I would hope that the IBAC Commissioner is listening today, feels that they may have made an error by not having Mr Andrews questioned publicly and actually requestions Mr Andrews publicly so that the community can feel that there is that accountability, that there is that transparency and that there are not any favours to any member of Parliament—especially Mr Andrews, especially the Premier, especially someone as public as Mr Andrews was. He would quite happily turn up to his daily Dans but did not, for whatever reason, want to be in the spotlight via IBAC. So I strongly support Mr Somyurek’s push to conduct a transparent and public investigation. There are many within our community who want to know what level of corruption this government is involved in. They want to know all of the corruption that this Andrews government is involved in.
Mr Finn: Well, anyway, I don’t think he’s got that much time.
Dr CUMMING: Exactly that. They probably do not have enough time to get into all of the corruption that this government is involved in, but if they at least start the inquiry and get the ball rolling it will give the community a level of understanding of where the corruption actually sits.
But I have always been upset that IBAC is a toothless tiger, that it does not have the power and the reach that it should. In my mind they should have the power to impose huge fines on members of Parliament or others that are corrupt. I believe that IBAC should be able to have the powers to seize property and to seize assets if they feel that there has been criminal corruption involving public money. As well as that, if it involves any kind of corrupt conduct, they should have the full weight of the law and be able to not just push it towards the police but actually have that ability, because they are given all the information. They are given, normally, all of the grounds and the proof that the corruption exists. Therefore I feel that they should actually have the teeth to be able to sink them in in the way of fines and being able to seize property to get public money back, not allowing people to use the public purse, to use corruption. They need to pay back the community.
I feel that if it was found that someone like Mr Andrews was giving out contracts or during this pandemic time giving contracts out—multimillions of dollars—and not hiding under staff and you could clearly see that they are part of it, they should actually have their assets seized. They should have their homes taken away from them. They should be seen as any other criminal and have all of their assets seized, as they are conducting criminal activity, which is the conduct of stealing money from the public.
I look forward to this inquiry. I definitely hope that the Privileges Committee bring Mr Andrews in front of the committee to get answers, as well as anyone—members of Parliament—that they believe is involved in any kind of corrupt behaviour, and hold them to account, because that is what the community wants, that is what the community deserves. I cannot wait for IBAC to actually bring down their report on Operation Watts. Let us hope they actually do that before this state election. The community should go to the election knowing the results of these inquiries. Let us hope that the community get what they deserve, which is the truth.
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:47): If I could just have a few moments to speak on Mr Somyurek’s motion, I want to make a few points. It is a long motion, and I will not go through point by point the parts of the motion, because I know others have done that. But as Mr Somyurek has stated publicly and over many months, he has been in the public domain about the allegations of the conduct that he was involved with. He has stated that it was systematic. It is well known that the practices that Mr Somyurek was talking about have been actions of the Labor Party for decades, but what Mr Somyurek did—and not only Mr Somyurek but others involved in the Labor Party—was on an industrial scale. Mr Somyurek quite rightly points out that in fact the investigation that was undertaken by IBAC looked into one part of the Labor Party, one area—the factional area that he and others were associated with. But the question is: did it look into the other areas, the other factions, one of which of course the Premier belongs to and wields so much power in?
In terms of Mr Somyurek’s motion which he brings to the house today, he quite rightly points out these issues: that the reason for this is because of that disparity, that there was not that investigation. The first part of the motion states:
IBAC, despite acknowledging at public hearings that the practice of branch stacking had been endemic in the Australian Labor Party (ALP) for generations across all the factions—
all the factions—
and despite the Legislative Council resolving to request that their investigation be broadened to include all sections of the ALP, has only examined the Moderate Labor faction of the Victorian branch of the ALP during this investigation …
I think that is something that Mr Somyurek quite rightly says the public need to understand. They need to fully understand what has gone on here, because it is dangerous in terms of that corrupt behaviour—and I agree with him. I agree that it is incredibly dangerous to have only one element looked into. When we are talking about systematic rorting and corruption of our parliamentary democratic processes, there cannot be any more important matter to be investigated. We are in this chamber today privileged to hold the seats that we hold and privileged to represent the communities that we represent in all manner of representation. Whether it is as the Labor Party, whether it is as the Liberal and National parties or whether it is as an independent, we have the privilege to be standing here with the voice we have for those communities, and they rightly expect to understand what is going on. That is why I think this motion is so important, because there is a responsibility that as members of Parliament we get to the bottom of this, we get to the truth and we understand what is going on. The Privileges Committee is another body that has, as its title suggests, the privilege of our democratic process to look at these issues—breaches or corruption of the process. It is important to be able to have our democracy upheld.
I want to commend Mr Somyurek for standing up and speaking out, because I do not think there are too many that have done what he has done. As he has rightly pointed out in previous contributions, what he has done is wrong and there could be severe consequences for the actions that he has undertaken, but he is doing it because he now realises and is concerned about what it means for our democratic principles. As I said, despite what we think in terms of our ideologies and philosophies and our political beliefs, it is about the ability to have a robust debate, to be able to have a difference of opinion and to be able to be respectful to one another and have those debates, but it is also about integrity and being able to continue to have that integrity in the process.
I want to say in my concluding remarks that it is important that this chamber recognises what is required here as individuals who have come into this place as elected representatives of their communities so that we can see and we can understand that that important committee, the Privileges Committee, can look at these allegations that need to be reviewed and need to be looked at, as has been pointed out in the motion before us that Mr Somyurek has spoken on.
Mr SOMYUREK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:54): It is disappointing that my contribution today and my motivations for doing this are based on one thing, and that is to make sure that the millions of dollars that have been poured into this IBAC investigation actually see the light of day. I am putting myself on the line. It is not a body that I have stacked. Most members on that committee are Labor Party people, and they are certainly not my friends. I am putting myself on the line by referring a motion to a body that is stacked with Labor Party people. So how can this be a trick? It is not.
I am hoping and I am calling for an open and transparent investigation for that purpose—so that beyond the MPs the public actually sees and judges what I have done. It is not about the MPs. It is a highly risky thing to do. I am in a war with my former party. They have got the most MPs on that committee, yet I am still doing it because I want it to be open and transparent. IBAC is not being open and transparent. They have put out two former staff members that were moved on from my office. They are tainted. They are friends, and they are part of the Anthony Byrne clique. They are his protégés, and he is the guy that recorded me. So where are all the other staffers that they have spoken to? Let the world see what they have had to say.
I am really disappointed, because this motion is a tough motion. It is unprecedented for an MP to be referring themselves to the Privileges Committee, and then all these 10 points that I have said are suggestions. I am bagging myself in these 10 points—not anyone else, me. I am bagging myself. It was uncomfortable writing all of these things, I can tell you. I was thinking, ‘Can’t I dilute this a little, because I’m not guilty of that’. But I did it, and it took a lot out of me to put those 10 points, because they are damning of me. I contend I am not guilty of those, but I have put them in the motion and I am saying it is not restricted to that. We know this case intimately; these are the things that we see—that IBAC is looking at. The motion quite clearly says ‘on matters raised relating to the Honourable Adem Somyurek’—anything that has come out of it about me. So that was a bit disingenuous, and I am really unhappy that the government has taken the low road. That is typical of Mr Andrews. I could have sat here and talked about Mr Andrews branch stacking—how he paid for memberships. I know it all.
A member: What?
Mr SOMYUREK: It is all in my book; let us just keep it in the book. I did not attack them. I did not attack any of the Labor Party people—except for Hakki Suleyman, but he has got dispensation. I did not attack anyone. I was hoping that there would be some bipartisan recognition when someone puts themselves on the line to be investigated, especially to a body that they do not control the numbers in. There is a saying in politics: never have an investigation into something when you do not know what the result is going be. And if you think I can control what the Labor Party people or the crossbenchers or the Liberal Party are going to say out of this investigation, you have got to be kidding.
I have seen some hostile reactions coming back, so obviously from here we see, even if this does get to the Privileges Committee, the Labor Party people are not going to play this with a straight bat. We can tell from the hostile reaction, because their response was to call me names—‘branch stacker’. The Premier is a branch stacker. I went in on the same deal as him. He and I did a deal after he was branch stacking. So to get up there and call me a branch stacker actually demeans the debate. I was actually hoping that they would rise to the challenge. To me, if this gets through, it is actually dangerous, what they are going to do, because there are important issues here to be dealt with, and they are just going to treat it as a partisan issue. To accuse me of having an investigation into myself as a platform—you have got to be joking. Who wants to be investigated? I do not know what those former staff members are going to say. Some of them might hate me, and they might say really bad things about me. No-one puts themselves up to be investigated, especially in public view.
Motion agreed to.