Dr WOODRUFF question to PREMIER, Mr ROCKLIFF
You shamelessly used the pretence of undertaking a review of the Integrity Commission to delay reforms you already knew are needed. Dozens of recommendations from the decade‑old Cox review remain outstanding.
Despite saying you accepted recommendations from the commission of inquiry and the Weiss review, you pushed work on those into your review too. Now what? First, you refuse to even look at these essential reforms until your review was completed. Now, you are refusing to do the review and you have released no alternative plans. It is truly appalling.
Are we to conclude you have abandoned your efforts to reform the Integrity Commission, or will you show some integrity of your own for a change and commit to implementing these much-needed and long overdue reforms?
ANSWER
Honourable Speaker, I thank Dr Woodruff for the question. If I might answer the question straight up: yes, we are committed to those recommendations, as has been outlined – the Cox review recommendations and the Weiss review recommendations as well.
I do not agree with you about the alternative pathway. We did have legal advice and we formed a view that in order to protect the Integrity Commission, the independent review was not possible. Rather, the Joint Standing Committee on Integrity, if that is the right terminology for it, can undertake that review in what is, in my view, a more open and more transparent manner.
This has been a long journey for me when it comes to the Integrity Commission because I was on the Joint Standing Committee that recommended to set up an integrity commission back in 2008 and 2009, so I believe in it. We embarked in good faith in the JLN agreement about the review of the Integrity Commission. The principles still apply. It is just another way of doing it.
Dr Woodruff – It is another way of stalling and doing nothing.
Mr ROCKLIFF – No, it is actually not.
The SPEAKER – This is not a conversation. It is a question and an answer. If we could move through, please.
Mr ROCKLIFF – As Mr Ellis pointed out, a committee of this House and the other place where we can, in my view, conduct a review in a more open and transparent way. In the meantime, the Cox recommendations and the Weiss report recommendations will be implemented, and work is underway now.
SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION
Dr WOODRUFF – A supplementary question, Speaker?
The SPEAKER – I will hear the supplementary question.
Dr WOODRUFF – I am pleased to hear that the Premier has committed to those recommendations being progressed and work is underway. Can you please tell us when you expect that will be completed?
Mr ROCKLIFF – Thank you for the question, Dr Woodruff. There has already been a significant amount of work undertaken on the Cox review recommendations and other suggested reforms, including consultation through the release of a discussion paper in 2022. It is a complex area, as I believe we all appreciate, with many additional issues and proposals arising out of later reviews and consultation, with one of the recommended –
Dr Woodruff – Absolute rubbish.
Mr ROCKLIFF – It is actually not.
Dr Woodruff – There are 151 recommendations. You have only done six.
The SPEAKER – Order, Leader of the Greens. Let us get through Question Time without anyone having to leave.
Mr ROCKLIFF – One of the recommendations proposing 45 technical amendments to the act. The Department of Justice is drafting a plan for staged implementation of the recommendations and I can commit to it as soon as possible. I cannot give a date, but I respect the fact that you and others in the House – and I believe we all want to strengthen the provisions –
The SPEAKER – The Premier’s time for answering the supplementary has expired.
