Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Bills

Public Administration and Planning Legislation Amendment (Control of Lobbyists) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (14:06): Bairnsdale Regional Health are taking positive steps to address the challenges in their community, including, for example, the great tyranny of distance in East Gippsland. The health service, led by Chris, is implementing a fantastic new program called HoloLens. HoloLens allows people in remote East Gippsland to wear a virtual reality headset and see a specialist in Melbourne. These are the kinds of advances in our society that are being led by people on public sector boards.

Hospital boards are paid, but it is not a lot for professional people. They are not volunteers, but it is worth noting their tireless work advocating on behalf of the community. Let us just say, overwhelmingly people do not do this sort of work for the money. Finding the right person for these essential roles in our community can be hard. This data is from the Victorian Public Service Commission: 81 per cent of board members volunteer their time, and 77 per cent of board members reside in regional and rural Victoria. Recruiting to these boards is a key component of ensuring public trust and accountability in these entities, and a key component of public trust in public entities is that the boards look like the communities that they serve.

A key part of that reflection of the community is gender parity. In the past women were under-represented on major Victorian public sector boards, so in March 2015 the government set a 50 per cent target for all new appointments to major boards to be women. The result of that was from 2015 to 2021 the number of women on major boards went up from 39 per cent to 55 per cent. That is for major boards. When you expand that to all boards, women on all boards have gone up from 36 per cent at June 2018 to 40 per cent at June 2021. This does not include school councils as that data is unavailable.

The percentage breakdown of board members shows 1.6 per cent identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and 18 per cent as culturally or linguistically diverse; 1.4 per cent identify as a person with a disability; and 77 per cent are regional and rural residents. There is more to do in terms of reflecting the Victorian community. Again, that is a key facet of public trust, which this bill is apparently trying to achieve and which is the direct subject of the Operation Clara report, which it is in response to.

We set a target for women on boards and that was met, like how on this side of the chamber we set a target for women representing the community in Parliament. I am proud to say we have met and exceeded that target. Those opposite have not set those targets and they have paid the price for that, and we have seen over recent times that respect for diversity – which again is a key part of public trust; the public want to see representatives who are just that, representative – is not an area of public trust that the opposition are interested in.

Local government does deliver so many essential services for the community, and again these institutions need to be promoting trust in public administration, trust in the community and trust in each other. To do this the government is making sure these bodies represent the community. These thousands of representatives of Victoria are participating in democracy. They are representing their community, they are having a say and they are contributing to the contest of ideas and putting those ideas to a vote. All of these representatives and these boards must address the issue of conflict of interest, which is the fundamental point of the Operation Clara recommendations.

According to this bill, the purpose is to ‘amend the Public Administration Act 2004 and the Victorian Planning Authority Act 2017 to provide more control over lobbyists’. This is a very odd purpose and shows how rushed and sloppy the opposition has been in drafting the bill. In Operation Clara, IBAC was concerned not with controlling lobbyists but with the issues of transparency and with issues of integrity specifically relating to conflicts of interest. The recommendations from Operation Clara are to amend and strengthen guidelines and codes of conduct to explicitly address conflicts of interest arising from lobbyists. IBAC recommends that this is done through the Department of Premier and Cabinet amending the appointment and remuneration guidelines and the lobbyist code of conduct, as well as through the Victorian Public Sector Commission revising the code of conduct for directors. We need to get the consultation right and ensure that the concerns outlined in IBAC’s report are properly addressed. We will get any legislative reform we bring to this place right and not rush it to score cheap political points.

Public trust, accountability and integrity do not just stem from government-related public sector entities either, and we need to remember this. Every week I am out and about in Eastern Victoria meeting with constituents on the ground. A lot of the time these groups are committees that have some management responsibility. Committees manage volunteer clubs and associations at the local grassroots level. These are the football clubs, the rec reserve committees, the neighbourhood house committees – you name an important local institution in our community, and there is a team of volunteers coming together to take part in local democracy to further their interests and passions.

When I meet with these groups, with these committees, it is often those that have the people that are willing to step up and do the work that are most seeing their organisations, their groups, prosper, thrive, have success, support the community – whatever their endeavour is that they are doing. It is those individuals within that group, within that committee, that take the time and make the effort – I have talked about how they are volunteers, or those that are paid are often not paid a huge amount of money ‍– that get the results and get the success that the rest of the community then gets to enjoy and celebrate. Whether it is sports clubs having success on the field or in whatever endeavour they may be pursuing or whether it is groups that are trying to help individuals in society, those that are facing hardship, they are there to support locals. So these committees and their governance are also representative, and the government has continued to support participation at the local level in sport and in other community activities by women and people from diverse backgrounds.

I want to use this time debating public accountability and integrity to highlight the work of these groups. Whether it is the committee of the Wurruk Community House or the Mornington Football Club, their work on the ground continues to build our community from the ground up through their representation and volunteering. These efforts go towards having a more trusting society where people know each other and work together to pursue their interests, and it is that building of community that builds in a robust strength. We weave a fabric of community by these people stepping forward and others coming around them and supporting them by having joint endeavours. That is when we get the best outcomes, and that to me is community. That these individuals come together to form committees, to form groups and to display that for the community to all enjoy and benefit from is something that we should truly acknowledge and celebrate.

Often these interests are essential. I spoke before about public boards for schools and hospitals, but as the Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep is here with us right now, what about local kindergartens? The government has invested massively in kindergarten, has made three-year-old kinder free and is making huge investments in community infrastructure to make places available and get families back working if they choose to, particularly women. And we know that it is particularly women who are raising children and who are out of work, and by the time it is that they get back to work they have seen their peers advance ahead of them. They have stayed in the one place in their career advancement while others go forward. So everything we can do to support these families and these women, if they do indeed wish to get back to work, is absolutely critical.

The volunteers who run these facilities are representing their community, and I want it on the record as a key factor in building public trust. Public trust in our institutions is vitally important for our state and for our democracy. The people who put their hands up to take leadership roles in our community should be commended, and I have made a point of doing that in this contribution, especially for those groups in Eastern Victoria. We need to ensure in public life – and that includes in Parliament and on our essential boards of public bodies – that people are acting in the interests of all Victorians and not other, conflicted interests.

This bill, however, should be opposed because it is rushed and it is sloppy. The important matters raised in the Operation Clara report relating to conflicts of interest inherent when dealing with political lobbyists are matters that the government is pursuing.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:16): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until later this day.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until later this day.