Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I move –
That the Legislative Council:
(1). Notes the vital role of Integrity Commission ensuring holders of public office are held to high standards of ethical conduct and the objectives of the Integrity Commission Act 2009.
(2). That the findings of the 2016 Cox Review, the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Abuse in Institutional Settings (the Commission of Inquiry) and the Independent Review into former Tasmania Police Officer, the paedophile Paul Reynolds (the Weiss Review), call for stronger investigative powers and resourcing for the Integrity Commission and changes to the Integrity Commission Act 2009, so the Integrity Commission can effectively perform its statutory objectives.
(3). Notes the comments of Integrity Commission Chair, Greg Mellick AO SC, on 8 July 2024 regarding the Commission’s funding and resourcing shortfall.
(4). Notes that current funding allocations are impacting on the Integrity Commission’s capacity to effectively perform its current functions, as well as implement any recommendations from the Cox Review, Commission of Inquiry and the Weiss Review.
(5). Supports a strong, well-resourced Integrity Commission and high standards of ethical conduct in public office.
(6). Calls upon the Government to significantly increase funding to the Integrity Commission in to ensure it is able to deliver better transparency and accountability in public office.
Mr President, I rise to speak in my capacity as the Greens shadow portfolio holder for our democracy and integrity also as a proud member of the Integrity Committee of this parliament; someone who has had engagement with the committee, not as someone who has been subject to an allegation or complaint in the past – as a newly elected member back in 2009, when I presented to the Joint Standing Committee on Ethical Conduct and talked about some of the elements that should be part of the highest ethical standards in public life and how an integrity body might deliver those standards.
So, 15 years after parliament decided to establish the Integrity Commission Act 2009 it is a reasonable question to ask how effective has the Integrity Commission been? Why is it subject to regular public criticism? Why, according to the Australia Institute, has there been an erosion of public trust in the Integrity Commission?
Members will have a view on this, but I think there are a couple of fundamental reasons. One of them is that it is a small town, Tasmania and almost inevitable the Integrity Commission would be constrained to some extent in the way it operated, as a result of the closeness of the community that we live in. Close connections played out, because in all the time the Integrity Commission has existed, it has never held a public hearing.
And this is something that we should ask why? The Integrity Commission itself, in information it is given to parliament and into reviews, has made clear that it does not want to hold public hearings, because there is a concern that would destroy reputations.
It is always a fine balance, but if we are serious about upholding high standards of ethical conduct then you need to have a robust and well-resourced integrity body fully empowered under the act. But one of the major reasons the Integrity Commission has been unable to perform to the extent is its funding. Of all the similar type integrity bodies in the country, proportionally Tasmania is funded at a far lower rate.
When parliament established the Integrity Commission, it set out the objectives of the body in the act. The act says: [OK]
(2) The objectives of the Integrity Commission are to –
(a) improve the standard of conduct, propriety and ethics in public authorities in Tasmania; and
(b) enhance public confidence that misconduct by public officers will be appropriately investigated and dealt with; and
(c) enhance the quality of, and commitment to, ethical conduct by adopting a strong, educative, preventative and advisory role.
(3) The Integrity Commission will endeavour to achieve those objectives by –
(a) educating public officers and the public about integrity; and
(b) assisting public authorities deal with misconduct; and
(c) dealing with allegations of serious misconduct or misconduct by designated public officers; and
(d) make findings and recommendations in relation to its investigations and inquiries.
Members will recall that an issue flared up during the state election campaign. It became the subject of political speculation and gossip. There were matters before the Integrity Commission during the election, and there was a reasonable suggestion that voters should have some idea of who may be being investigated.
One of the issues here is the length of time it takes for our Integrity Commission to complete its investigations, make findings and recommendations. As I understand it, there are significant investigations that are before the commission now that have been sitting with the commission for two or three years. We want to ask ourselves as a parliament, whether that is good enough.
I think the answer is no, and that is no disrespect to the investigators at the Integrity Commission. We are dealing here with a body that operates on about $3.6 million a year and has five full‑time equivalent staff. It is manifestly under‑resourced, and the question is: Is that by design?
Over the years there has been no significant increase in the Integrity Commission’s funding, which has hobbled it in its capacity to make sure public officers – the likes of all of us – and bureaucrats in Tasmania are held to very high standards of ethical conduct. What are those standards? I am glad you asked.
The starting point is the principles of good governance in public life. These principles are well expressed by the House of Commons Committee on Standards in Public Life in its first report in 1995. These are principles that we should all live by as people who have been entrusted by our communities to be here and represent their hopes, dreams, interests and concerns. The principles are as follows: [OK]
Selflessness: Holders of public office should take their decisions solely in terms of public interest. They should not do so to gain financial or material benefits for themselves, their family or their friends.
Integrity: Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might influence them in the performance of their duties.
Objectivity: In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit.
Accountability –
More of this please:
Accountability: Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office.
Openness. Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the public interest clearly demands it.
Honesty: Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest.
And, finally:
Leadership: Holders of public office should support these principles by leadership and example.
We will all have a view on whether we, as individual representatives, or some of our colleagues across a chamber or standing at a lectern, is upholding all of these standards but it is certainly, absolutely and unequivocally a set of standards that we should apply in our lives here.
We are in a situation where this incredibly important body, supported in its establishment by both Houses of the parliament, is caught in this constant churning process of reviews. These are reviews that have either not been properly responded to by government or we are told to wait for the response to the review while another review is undertaken. All of this leads to a type of paralysis within the Integrity Commission. There is so much uncertainty over whether or not, for example, government will implement any more than six of the 55 recommendations in the review by William Cox. Some of these recommendations are quite technical in nature, tightening up of the act, but some of them relate, for example, to processes and authority within the commission, the nexus between the CEO and the board, decision‑making processes about whether or not to proceed with an investigation.
But the Honourable William Cox, AC RFD ED QC, presented his report pursuant to section 106 which is the review requirement of the Integrity Commission Act 2009 in May 2016. Eight years ago, a comprehensive review by an esteemed former judicial officer is presented to government and six of the 55 recommendations only have been implemented. I think that tells us something about government’s commitment or not to making sure the Integrity Commission can effectively do its job.
We had some interesting comment in here during the review process from well-regarded members of our academic and legal community. Professor Jeff Malpas in his submission to the Cox review said,
… in general, I would suggest that the act has resulted in the establishment of a relatively large and costly bureaucracy that has no demonstrated effectiveness in addressing the issues concerning public ethics that gave rise to the original legislation. I would note that the act itself and also the commission is very different from that which Sir Max Bingham and I proposed in the public discussion leading up to the formation of the legislation in 2009. [TBC]
I personally cannot say I agree with everything that Professor Malpas has said there. Indeed, the Integrity Commission has produced some excellent work. One of the more recent reports by the Integrity Commission examined right to information processes in the Department of Health and saw that there was a systemic issue there that meant the spirit and intent of the Right to Information Act was not being followed. It was a very significant investigative report, in part because of its detail, but also because it drilled down into how government distorts Right to Information to restrict the flow of public information out to the people of Tasmania through such things as these RTI panels that were being set up in government agencies.
The Integrity Commission has done some outstanding work and particularly in that educative work that it does with public officers and members of parliament, but it is the investigative capacity that I want to deal with a bit today. Damien Bugg AM QC, in his submission to the review, said:
The commission has established very useful training modules on integrity issues, but surely this could have been done by another body or institution. The governance model is clumsy and one which will inevitably face problems. The commission, because of its corporate status, is an all-inclusive term resulting in the board, the CEO, staff, investigators and assessors constituting the commission and exercising the powers of the commission. Yet the board, the governing body, does not appear to have sufficient authority to establish a framework around the day-to-day operations of the commission. [TBC]
One of the recommendations that William Cox makes is also mirrored in the independent review prepared by barrister Regina Weiss, and that relates to ensuring that the Integrity Commission has sufficient coercive investigative powers to undertake its statutory functions.
The Cox Review and the Weiss Review both recognise that there are weaknesses, deficiencies, within the Integrity Commission Act that enable someone who is accused of serious misconduct to claim the right to silence under section 92 of the act. This section relates directly to the coercive powers that both the Cox Review and Regina Weiss identified as needing to be strengthened, and that was also identified by Robert Redlich AO QC, who is the former head of Victoria’s independent broad based anti-corruption bodies. Section 92 of the act, unlike every other integrity body in the country, says a person may, during an assessment of a complaint under section 35, an investigation under part 6 or inquiry under part 7, claim privilege and refuse to answer any questions or provide any information or explanation or produce any record, material or thing.
If a claim of privilege is made under subsection (2), the assessor, investigator, chief executive officer, inquiry officer or integrity tribunal may withdraw the requirement or direction to answer any question or provide any information or explanation or produce any record, material or thing. So, we have a clause in the founding act which has hobbled the Integrity Commission, because, if you are not able to thoroughly question someone who is subject to a serious misconduct allegation because they have claimed a right to silence, then where does your investigation go? And, under the act, the Integrity Commission can decide to proceed with the investigation or not.
But we have set integrity processes up for failure by providing for people who may have committed quite serious misconduct not to have to answer questions to our integrity body. No other independent commissioner against corruption, none of the other jurisdictions’ integrity bodies, has that right to silence. One of the things William Cox talks about is the Law Society backs the right to silence, but what William Cox makes clear, as did Robert Redlich, is that information that is provided to an integrity body as part of an investigative information gathering process cannot be used against a person in a court of law; it cannot be used as evidence against them. There is the protection that has been recognised by other integrity bodies around the country. Sir William Cox says,
It might be said that the privilege against self-incrimination is sufficient protection against any harm which might ensue from a coercive interrogation, but the reality is that many people are ignorant of the extent of that privilege, do not understand the circumstances which constitute a waiver of the privilege or the consequences of that waiver, and can be compromised by the perception that a claim to privilege is tantamount to an irrevocable admission of guilt. [TBC]
His recommendation is that the privilege against self-incrimination be excluded from the act. This might be achieved by amending section 4 to accept that particular privilege from paragraph A of the definition of privilege, and that the act be amended to provide that any statement or document made or procured by a witness under compulsion shall be inadmissible against that person in any civil or criminal proceedings against him or her, other than proceedings for an offence against the Act or perjury in respect of that statement without his or her consent.
There is a number of recommendations in that regard, many of these recommendations have simply not been implemented or addressed in any meaningful way. Now we have another process of review of the functions and powers and effectiveness of the Integrity Commission, that has been initiated as part of the agreement between the Premier and his government and the Jacqui Lambie Network. When I listened to the Leader of Government Business answer to a question about that the other day, I heard that it is unlikely that the review will be finished before the first third of next year.
We have a comprehensive review that is already done. We also have a recommendation from the commission of inquiry. I do not know how many members watched much of the testimony before the commission of inquiry, but there was one day when a sequence of statutory officers were quizzed by commissioners about how they responded to allegations that have been made or what they saw as their statutory responsibility regarding preventing the grooming and sexual abuse of children and young people. It was catastrophic to see how so many children and young people slipped through the cracks.
It was evident that statutory roles such as the Commissioner for Children and Young People, the Ombudsman, the Integrity Commissioner, and the Registrar for the Registration to Work with Vulnerable People and it was like none of them was talking to each other. There was confusion about where responsibility and accountability lay. A core recommendation of the Commission of Inquiry into the Government’s Responses to Child Sex Abuse in Institutional Settings was that those statutory entities work to establish a memorandum of understanding around collaboration, where it is appropriate, data sharing, and clear delineation and understanding of statutory roles and responsibilities. To be captured within that MOU was the Commissioner for Children, the Ombudsman, the Integrity Commissioner, and the Registrar for the Registration to Work with Vulnerable People scheme.
I have not heard anything about whether that MOU has been agreed upon or adopted, but it was certainly an important recommendation of the commission of inquiry. I acknowledge that this government has been quite meticulous in working through the commission of inquiry recommendations, notwithstanding the interruption caused by an early election. If there is any information the Leader of Government Business can provide in relation to the MOU that the Integrity Commission would be part of, that would be very helpful.
Then we have another very difficult‑to‑read body of work by barrister Regina Weiss – the Weiss Independent Review into Paul Reynolds final report of June 2024 – and it poses the question, who polices the police? When that question is asked, the answer is there is ambiguity. In Tasmania, it is Tasmania Police who are often charged with policing the police, and we saw what a devastating failure that was in responding to the paedophile police officer, Paul Reynolds, who over the course of 30 years as a respected member of the northern community, as a police officer and as a sports coach, abused, groomed and damaged so many children.
Even when internally alarm bells went off about Reynolds’ behaviour, because of the culture in Tasmania Police at the time, the ‘looking after your mate’ culture – which is not just a Tasmania Police thing, I know that – Paul Reynolds was enabled to continue abusing. Indeed, there still has not been justice for his victims because an investigation was initiated belatedly, then he took his life and that investigation was dropped. We still do not know what happened when and where to allow this person to spend 30 years harming kids.
Recommendation 5 of the Weiss review is a challenge to government not to dither on this. This is not the sort of suggested reform that should cause unease in government. If your lens is political risk – and major party governments are like that – then refer back to this report. The whistleblowers, the victim/survivors who provided testimony to Regina Weiss to this day are being let down, and badly.
Recommendation 5 is that consideration be given to Tasmania Police making recommendations to the Tasmanian government for amendments to the Integrity Commission Act 2009 to ensure that all notifications made to the Integrity Commission in respect of members of Tasmania Police who are alleged to have groomed and or sexually abused person, which is serious misconduct by definition, can be investigated independently by the Integrity Commission through authorising access to Tasmania Police investigation databases providing coercive examination powers – that is section 92 – recognising the Integrity Commission as a law enforcement agency for the purposes of Tasmanian legislation under which applications for covert powers might be sought.
As I understand it, and it is fleshed out more in the chapter in this report, every other integrity body in the country is recognised as a law enforcement agency under the Commonwealth Telecommunications Act, which allows them to covertly surveil in the interests of investigating serious misconduct. The Integrity Commission, for whatever reason, has not been included in that collective of integrity bodies under Commonwealth law. That is not a difficult thing for the government to do. It would be a very straightforward amendment to the Telecommunications Act.
I say this to government: It would be really good to get some reassurance about that, because we have senators up there who could ask the Office of Parliamentary Council to draft that amendment bill, but that is not the way it should be done. Further to recommendation 5, Regina Weiss is calling for the commission to have the ability to:
- conduct open or closed hearings in relation to any matter relative to the performance of its functions with as little formality and technicality as is consistent with a fair and proper consideration of the issues.
- apply to a magistrate or justice of the peace for a warrant for arrest in the first instance.
- conduct wholly independent or joint investigations with Tasmania Police and or other law enforcement bodies, or monitor and/or oversee investigations conducted by Tasmania Police.
- extend jurisdictions for investigations of former Tasmania Police members, provided the conduct being investigated occurred while the person was an officer or an employee.
Recommendation 35 of the Cox review reflects this as well where he says that consideration needs to be given to Tasmania Police requesting the Commonwealth recognise the Tasmanian Integrity Commission under the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 so as to define the commission as an eligible agency and grant the commission the status of a criminal law enforcement agency for the purposes of the act.
We now have a recommendation going back to 2016, reiterated eight years later, which should be non-controversial. The resistance to some of these quite straightforward improvements to the act and functioning of the Integrity Commission makes an old cynic like me pretty cynical, actually, because it feels like there is a real unwillingness on the part of government to do anything to give the Integrity Commission the powers that it needs.
The member for Nelson and I, also my colleague, Helen Burnet, the member for Clark, and a number of other members attended the Australia Institute Tasmania forum on integrity on 27 June this year. We had the privilege to hear the wisdom of Robert Redlich KC with also the member for Mersey and the independent member for Clark, Kristie Johnston, present.
Ms Forrest – It wasn’t on sitting week, so some of us weren’t going to come down especially.
Ms O’CONNOR – Yes.
Ms Webb – It was also online, so some attended remotely.
Ms O’CONNOR – Robert Redlich is a renowned integrity champion, former commissioner of the Victorian Independent Broadbased Anti-Corruption Commission, judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria for 15 years. Among many achievements are Robert’s work as a former commonwealth special prosecutor, which led to the establishment of the National Crime Authority, his role as counsel assisting the inquiry into corruption at the Richmond Council and, as a senior member of the bar council, commissioning the first inquiry in the legal profession on gender bias. Also, I might say, he is a truly delightful and thoughtful gentle man.
He made some observations and I took notes on that day. He said when accountability is missing, integrity will not flow. The Integrity Commission is a weak body, the budget it has is a farce. It is a bit over $3,000,000 and that is shocking in comparison with eastern states, and most of that funding, he said, is spent on salaries.
He said the government needs to be compelled to better fund the Integrity Commission. He also raised the issue of section 92 and the right to silence, and he said the trappings of inquiry here are like nothing anywhere else. Here, inquiries can go nowhere. With a framework like that, you will not uncover misconduct, and the primary focus has to be on exposing misconduct.
He raised the issue, which a number of transparency stakeholders have raised, about the absolute resistance of the Integrity Commission to ever holding a public hearing. In the Victorian legislation, he said public hearings are recognised as being in the public interest and – it is a two-part test – the commission must be satisfied that there is no prospect a person’s reputation will be unreasonably damaged, and he suggested that the act should provide for protection against unreasonable damage to the reputation. But he observed that when you hold a public hearing, there is no capacity there for the government of the day to sweep its dirty laundry under the carpet, but we know that the Integrity Commission is concerned about ‘destroying reputations’.
The board has an unfettered discretion to decide whether it is a public or private hearing, and, as we know, it has always erred on the side of privacy. However, he did observe, and correctly so, that the question of public hearings is antithetical to the political interest, and perhaps that is why we are where we are.
He also said there is a flaw in our framework here because in every other jurisdiction, third parties who are seeking to influence a public officer are captured by their acts, which we will not do here. I would be surprised if anyone really disagreed with this in a quiet and honest moment, but the Integrity Commission should also be able to investigate misconduct by people who are in political office by virtue of the fact that they are political advisers. The amount of power that political staff wield is not fully understood by the everyday Tasmanian. Ten years ago, we had a chief of staff to the Premier who was earning more than every single elected member in this place, and indeed earning more, as I understood it, than the Premier’s base salary. It did not pass the sniff test then; it does not pass the sniff test now.
He also said that the commission has an obligation to conclude its investigations as speedily as possible, and we know that in the annual report just gone, there was an identification that members of the Tasmanian parliament were under investigation. However, we still do not know who, what, why, and we have been to an election.
The Integrity Commission Chief Commissioner – I have made an error in the notice of motion; it is not the Chair of the Integrity Commission. He chairs the board, but his position is actually the Chief Commissioner. He is obviously very frustrated, and he put out a statement in July this year, looking behind him at the expectations of the community, particularly following the Commission of Inquiry and the Independent Weiss Review, and recognised that there is likely to be, if government adopts these recommendations – and let us hope it does – an increase in the workload for the Integrity Commission.
Then there is another whole layer on top of that, which is the JLN review process. Not unlike what we heard is happening in the finfish sector, the director of the Environment Protection Authority, during the development of those environmental standards, chose – that is, used his discretion – not to place any more obligations or restrictions on the industry. What we have here is another clear example of where there has been this huge body of work done going back some eight years, and then the government is going, ‘Oh, look over there at that JLN review. Once we get to the end of that, then we will have a chat about what we might do, what we feel like doing, and what we probably will not do unless we are pushed’.
That is just not good enough. We have a clear need for a strengthened Integrity Commission and changes to the act. It has been established by William Cox, the commission of inquiry and the independent Weiss review that the commission needs reform, as does its founding act. Yet here we are some six weeks after the Weiss review came out – not much of a word from government about how they are going to respond to those recommendations, and now we are told that we will have to wait months and months for the JLN review of the Integrity Commission to be complete.
I cannot remember exactly what the Leader of Government Business said in relation to this the other day, but my understanding was they had yet to appoint a reviewer. Is that right? Amazing and totally on brand.
Greg Melick, the chief commissioner of AOSC, released this statement on 8 July. I encourage members to absorb what he is saying here: [TBC]
The Integrity Commission was established to prevent and investigate misconduct in Tasmania public sector institutions, including Tasmania Police. The conduct outlined in the Weiss review undermines public trust in public office. It is illustrative of the abuse of power and position.
Chief Commissioner Greg Melick acknowledges the Weiss review’s recommendations about the Integrity Commission and the decision by Tasmania Police to proactively provide us with investigation files that relate to sexual abuse by police officers for oversight purposes. ‘It is important work that must be done,’ Chief Commissioner Melick said.
‘We strive within our current resourcing to do the best we can do, however, on our current budget we cannot provide the level of investigation or oversight that the report recommends.’
‘Ms Weiss has recommended we be given a range of powers, some of which we already possess. Importantly, we barely have the resources to exercise our existing powers as envisaged and expected by the Tasmanian Parliament and the public.’
‘We have the equivalent of less than five full‑time employees in our complaints and oversight teams combined. As skilled and motivated as our staff are, it is not possible within our current resourcing to thoroughly oversight the some 40,000 or so public sector workers in Tasmania, including the over 1400 police officers.’
The Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings also recommended enhanced oversight of public sector institutions by the Integrity Commission.
It is there. It is a challenge to us all. We have the state budget coming up. I gather – well, who can say whether there will be an increase in the Integrity Commission’s funding in this year’s state budget, but that statement by the Chief Commissioner of the Integrity Commission was in early July, and that was long before the budget had been finally finalised and sent off to the printers.
If, again, the Rockliff government decides not to respond to Chief Commissioner Melick’s urgent call for more funding, it will point to a political choice. I am not inside their heads, but if we reflect back on parliament’s tripartisan, multi-partisan, both Houses unanimous support for the establishment of an Integrity Commission, we should reflect on our responsibility not to set it up to fail, because if we all agree that we should be held to the highest standards of ethical conduct, we surely also agree there should be a properly constituted and funded body in place to make sure of that.
When you have a dedication within government and across government to ethical conduct, it has an intangible but, I believe, profoundly positive effect on the society and the economy. When there is public trust in our institutions and in our democracy, that is a very big positive for society.
We saw this on 6 January 2021 in the United States. The social fabric is very thin. It is all held together in some ways by convention and consensus and politeness, but if you have people – for example like Donald Trump – who have no respect for laws or institutions, who lies five times in a single sentence, then the law means nothing if you have courts not willing to enforce it. We need to remember that it is part of our job to strengthen faith in public offices and public institutions because people are quite rightly a bit cynical.
We have watched politics for a long time. We often see that politicians are not acting in the public interest. If we can be part of that ethical governance framework and culture in Tasmania, it will deliver real positives, over time, to our community. If people do not respect our institutions, the social fabric starts to fall apart. We do not want that. We do not want that for our beautiful little island.
I hope all members agree that we need to back the Integrity Commission through making sure it has the powers that it needs, and also making sure that it has extra resourcing. There is no justification for not increasing the budget of the Integrity Commission, particularly after the Chief Commissioner’s statements, but also in the full knowledge that the commission is going to be required to undertake more work that is potentially more complex and cross-jurisdictional. To do that it needs to be properly resourced.
I will make a bit of a throwaway in closing. It has been some time since a strong woman was the CEO or the Chief Commissioner or even on the board of the Integrity Commission. The Integrity Commission board is a ‘manel’ – it is made up of all men. It has been all men for as long as I can remember. I remember the first two Chief Commissioners: Barbara Etter and Diane Merriful, who maybe did their jobs too well. Maybe they just applied themselves too thoroughly to the objectives of the commission under the act. I will make the observation that there are not many women in senior positions.
As a parliament we should be mindful of that, because a well-balanced board will make better balanced and sometimes braver decisions. You only have to look at some of the research they have done on ASX listed companies that have had a proactive and direct commitment to gender balance on their boards. Productivity goes up and profits go up.
Regarding future board appointments and appointments of senior positions in the Integrity Commission, I find it a little bit hard to believe that there are not some terrific – in fact I know there are outstanding – legal minds who are women. We cannot keep shutting strong, skilled women out of our important public institutions like the Integrity Commission.
That is a personal observation. I have raised it with the minister before. I have raised it and still ‘manel’.
I hope that members recognise that in supporting this motion, we are not directing the government to allocate funds. I should not have to explain that. I feel like I am explaining it to myself. We are calling on the government to heed the calls of the Chief Commissioner, recognise the reform agenda that the Integrity Commission will be subject to, and make sure that we are pushing for its proper funding, so it can do the job of upholding high ethical standards in public office in Tasmania.
I commend the motion to the House.
