#23 Why we need a Federal ICAC
The question must be asked, is this the most corrupt government in Australian history and do we need a Federal ICAC? Politicians of all persuasions should represent the public interest for example on same sex marriage, 64% of the Australian public support Same Sex Marriage, and a majority of Christians (53%) support marriage equality, but the politicians do not and they are taking us through a costly and unnecessary plebiscite that will in all likelihood be ignored anyway. And that is not the only issue on which our politicians do not align with public opinion but is this corruption?
Tony Abbott once said that ‘It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.’ Yet the Abbott- Turnball government has done just that. They have promised one thing in the lead up to the election and then they have delivered the opposite and anyone would be hard pressed to deny this, virtually every Election promise for the 2013 Election has been broken and Turnbull is working on the 2016 election promises now all the while blaming Labor for his governments policy failures.
There was public anger recently as former Queensland Judge, Tony Fitzgerald developed new ethics guidelines and just a paltry 53 out of 226 MPs signed the Fitzgerald Principles, which were designed to hold federal ministers and senators accountable to their actions as they have promised to uphold, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The fact that hardly any of the signatures were from the LNP is notable, what have they got to be afraid of? Bill Shorten has signed it but Malcolm Turnbull has not.
Australians trust in their elected representatives has ebbed away to it's lowest level in two decades and affiliation to a particular party is on the decline and that means a lot of unattached voters who are disaffected with the major parties. So the question must be asked, just whose interests do the major parties look after? And to answer that question, one has to look to the shadowy world of political donations but once you do, it makes the government's actions clearer and also highlights why we need a Federal ICAC.
Every Australian state now has its own anti-corruption watchdog. The core function of these bodies is to investigate complaints of corruption and misconduct against politicians, government officers, the public service and judges. They have wide powers to compel testimony and documents. Yet the Commonwealth has successfully resisted pushes towards the establishment of a Federal ICAC in recent years. The current fragmented system to tackle corruption at a national level is manifestly inadequate when compared to the promise of a federal ICAC.
There certainly are a number of other offices and mechanisms at the federal level that perform parts of the role of a federal ICAC. But do they really provide a 'strong system of checks and balances' that the Gillard government said were needed to be in place when it comes to government corruption? The answer is no there isn't the requisite checks and balances. There needs to be a Federal ICAC to root out corruption and to give the feeling of legitimacy in our ailing system. Sussan Ley for example, had to resign from the front bench due to an ongoing issue with travel expenses earlier this year, and how many stories have we had in the media of politicians on both sides rorting the MP Entitlement system like Bronwyn Bishop and those helicopter rides or Julie Bishop and those chartered flights? In the last few years politicians on all sides of the political divide have racked up millions of dollars in Entitlements, it seems as if the Age of Entitlement in Australia is over for everyone but politicians.
A Federal ICAC would help the shadowy worlds of Entitlements and Donations come out in the open and would hopefully stamp out the corruption that seems to be manifesting itself currently. It may even go some way into restoring Australians faith in the system which is at an all time low and in the system which is arguably broken due to corruption and Elitism.
