State Green Party raises concerns over Labor’s ‘fishy’ IBAC reforms proposal

0:00What does it say? I'm pretty disappointed in that Premier Ben Carole. He said he wanted to give I back these powers to, you know, root out corruption and to follow the money. It looks like I back will get the powers, but for some reason it'll be prevented from reinvestigating things which the earlier less powerful version of I back had already looked at. And to me this is ridiculous. Like I back couldn't follow the money back in the day. Now it can. There are things it looked at where it would have liked to have followed the money, but wasn't able to do so. Why can't they go back in time? And I must say I think that Ben Carole is trying to protect certain people. Just my guess, my theory. Maybe it's the former Premier just into Alan. An ex-guest is leader of the Victorian Greens. Ellen Sandell, good morning. Good morning, Tom. Have I got this right? And do you agree? Well, can I put in my vote for Australian top TV first? How big are you? Come on. Yes. You've been show ever. My daughter wants the remake of that and thought it was absolutely

1:01fantastic. The original was perfect TV. But yeah, so we are concerned with this I back bill. Firstly, we're concerned because I think Labour has really been dragged kicking and screaming to even bring this bill to the Parliament. The Greens introduced a very similar bill to this three times in the last four years in the last term, a parliament. Labour and the Liberals voted it down every single time. Now it's five minutes to midnight right before the election and all of a sudden, Labour's in trouble and they're bringing the bill. But in typical Labour form, there are some blue poles and carbats in there that will be seeking to close. Okay. So as I understand it, the new I back after this bill will have more power, particularly to follow the money, whereas the old I back, you know, can only look at public servants and politicians. But the new I back will be prevented from reinvestigating things that the old I back already looked at. Is that right? Yes, similar. So yes, it'll have follow the money powers. The other important thing will be an expanded jurisdiction. So so currently what I back can look into has to be

2:02such a high bar of criminal activity, whereas in New South Wales, the bar is much lower. And so it'll lower the bar of the kind of corruption that I back can look into. And that is a really important measure. And that's something the government hadn't committed to until the Greens pushed for it. So that's a good thing. But yeah, we are concerned by these blue poles. And it's actually a little bit unclear in the wording around what retrospectivity will be in and what will be ruled out. And because it is so unclear in the laws and we think it's a little bit fishy, we'll be trying to move amendment just to get rid of that part so that it's very clear that things in the past can be looked into. We've got two other amendments as well in fact, because we think there should be public hearings. We think Victorian should have transparency like they have in New South Wales. And we also think the ministerial code of conduct should be made public because now I back will be able to look into when ministers breach that code of conduct. But actually that code of conduct isn't required to be public. So how is both of us not able to breach that if we actually don't even know what it is? Well, as they say, the best disinfectant is always bright sunlight, isn't it?

3:05Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, how have you found dealing with Ben Carole? I've interviewed him I don't know, maybe three times since he became premier. And he, well, he's different from just Senator Allen and Dan Andrews, I'll give him that. But do you think he genuinely wants to reform these things? Do you think he's trying to cover something up here? Well, I think it's a bit of both. I think he does genuinely want to get rid of some of the terrible decisions that's labors made in the past. And you know, I've known Ben Carole for a long time, he's a North Melbourne supporter, North Melbourne's in my electorate. I often see him at North Melbourne Football Club events. And I think he does genuinely want to reform this. But you know, he's in labor and the typical labor fashion is to do good things with loopholes attached. And that's what I'm concerned about is why is labor always putting these loopholes and carve out into reforms that Victorians actually need? Do you think it's designed to make sure that just Senator Allen has a comfortable retirement and isn't bothered by being investigated? Oh, he knows. I don't know why they're doing it, to be honest. But we're going to move in a memory to try and get rid of it, that clause that prevents

4:09retro-respectivity. Because let's just make it clear. Let's just make it clear that I, that can look into things in the past to bring up whatever it needs to bring up, investigate whatever it needs to investigate. Victorians deserve the same kind of anti-corruption laws that they have in places like New South Wales who don't deserve less. So that's why the Greens are going to move those amendments. All right. Good luck with it. Thank you, Vittar. I'm Ellen Sandell there, Victorian Greens later. And it's not often I agree with the Greens, but there's bottom on this one. Again, if the previous new to diversion of I back or you know, I back that didn't have very many powers looked at something but couldn't take the investigation too far because they just didn't have the ability to do so. If we're going to give this new version of I back a lot more power, which seems to be happening, they've got to be able to go back and relook at things. And it doesn't matter if someone's reputation is going to get destroyed or whatever because Ben Carroll has made it clear on this show in another forums, you know, he wants to sort of route out all this corruption and so forth. Right. Well then let this new version of I back do its job.