It was rather extraordinary again to hear a government spokesperson yesterday tell us
we do not need a national anticorruption watchdog and it is better if this sort of thing is
diffused throughout the Public Service.
The minister is effectively saying, 'We'd rather nobody was in charge; we'd rather there
was nobody where the buck stopped to keep an eye on this, unearth corruption, be able
to take evidence and be able to be the person where the buck stops.'
They would rather that that be diffused and that it not really be anybody's responsibility.
I do not know if it is the first time that that form of argument has been run, but I
found it peculiar and entirely unconvincing.
An example of where I think we could use this kind of body is in the Western Australian
context.
You will be aware, because Senator Siewert and I have been raising this matter for many
years—as have Senator Lines and Senator Sterle—of the matter of the Perth Freight
Link, the so-called Roe 8 extension back in Western Australia.
It was announced very suddenly by the Liberal government right before the 2013 federal election.
It is one of these dead dogs of a policy from former Prime Minister Tony Abbott that is
still stinking up the place.
There is WestConnex, there is the East West Link and there is Roe Highway.
It is one of those kinds of zombie policies, a tremendously expensive one, that refuses
to fall over.
That was $1.2 billion of Australian taxpayers' money committed on a whim, effectively signed
off on the back of an envelope by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, with no business case
and no public cost-benefit analysis.
And, what do you know, the contract has been awarded—by the state government, I should
say, not the Commonwealth—to a consortium of companies led by Leighton Holdings.
I do not know if this was anything to do with brand damage, but they renamed themselves
CIMIC a little while ago.
They are a massive donor to the Liberal Party.
Leighton have donated nearly $700,000 to the WA Liberal and National parties.
That buys a lot of TV time, doesn't it?
That buys a lot of access.
That buys a lot of quiet conversations.
These old private-school networks, old boys clubs, are greased by a $700,000 political
donation—all above board, nothing illegal.
That is $700,000 to the Liberal and National parties.
This is a corporation that is bidding for a massive government contract.
So, for your $700,000—entirely above board—you can go in to bid for a $1.2 billion engineering
and construction contracts.
That is a clear conflict of interest.
No wonder trust in the institutions, with that queasy interface between commerce and
politics, is at an all-time low.
We think that it is time to ban political donations from for-profit corporations.
I know that is going to cause a degree of hyperventilation from the other end of the
chamber because it is that money that helped put you here, but we think that these things
should be banned.
Leighton is a $6.3 billion company; it runs mining, construction and engineering projects
all around the globe; and it has been described as company where corrupt practices were absolutely
endemic.
Highly paid senior executives used a range of bribery techniques, including kickbacks
to subcontractors, special payments to procure contracts, and facilitation payments.
So, while these bribery incidents occurred overseas, Leighton's involvement with Australian
government funded projects has been questioned.
Who would you put these kinds of questions to?
At the moment, there is nobody.
There is nobody that you can put these kinds of questions to.
As I said, Leighton now operate under the name of CIMIC, after corruption allegations
came to light in 2013.
So that's fine—just change the name!
We do not know whether those practices have changed, whether the corporate culture has
changed or whether these kinds of under-the-table activities are occurring here in Australia,
because there is nobody tasked to find out.
In 2013, The Sydney Morning Herald reported 'Building giant Leighton rife with corruption',
and they disclosed evidence of massive bribery and corruption in the way that contracts were
being won around the world—most notoriously, the multimillion-dollar kickbacks paid to
win contracts in Iraq, which were later investigated by the Australian Federal Police.
As recently as 31 January of this year, the Herald reported 'Building giant Leighton rife
with corruption', and I want to quote from that article:
In revelations that will cause international embarrassment for Australia and raise questions
about the role of the nation's corporate watchdog, the files expose plans to pay alleged multimillion-dollar
kickbacks in Iraq, Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere, along with other serious corporate
misconduct.
Hundreds of confidential company documents, obtained during a six-month Fairfax Media
investigation, also reveal a culture of rewarding corruption or incompetence, and abysmal corporate
governance in what looms as the worst recent case of corporate corruption involving a major
Australian firm.
So they can throw down $700,000 here in Australia and, as if by magic, through some black-box
tendering process that is shrouded in commercial-in-confidence—this parliament has not been able to assess exactly
why that contract was won or whether the contract represents value for money—they nailed down
a $1.2 billion construction contract for a completely pointless road, a freight highway
through an important wetland area, an area of enormous significance to Aboriginal people,
an area of very high neighbourhood amenity, an area that has being dubbed the Kings Park
of the south.
Anybody from Western Australia will know that this is an area of extraordinary biodiversity
and of extraordinary value to the community, and it is being torn in half, effectively,
by this project.