I’m hoping the Reverend Graham Dempster wasn’t listening to question time this week.

I don’t know him but I read his submission to the recently resurrected Senate inquiry into a national integrity commission – effectively a federal Icac.

“I am greatly concerned for the future of parliamentary democracy in Australia, therefore I write, as an individual, and not representing any group or agency, in response to the call for submissions to the above inquiry ... My sense is that our political system is close to being irreparably broken,” he wrote.

“I believe, as do many people I interact with, that the current ‘self-regulation’ by our parliament is not working ... I submit that establishing a federal integrity commission would be a positive step towards addressing these problems as it would help greatly in re-establishing a degree of trust between the parliamentary processes and the general public – something that, in my view, has been almost totally lost.”

As if to prove his point, question time descended into a shout-athon about Chinese business donations to both major parties in which each sought to defend its behaviour by highlighting the misdeeds of the other, a kind of louder version of the schoolyard defence “Yeh miss but he’s worse and he did it first.”

Malcolm Turnbull thundered about Sam Dastyari’s donations and the senator’s subsequent contradiction of Labor’s official position on the South China Sea. Labor countered with former trade minister Andrew Robb’s post-politics part-time job with Chinese company Landbridge, the same company that controversially secured the lease to the Darwin Port. Mixed in, mostly for hilarious effect, were revelations that a Chinese mining magnate set up the “Julie Bishop Glorious Foundation” – apparently a company that had that name for just a few days, without the foreign affairs minister even knowing, and some historic allegations about a Labor frontbencher.

In short, serious questions countered with the usual tactics – when things get hot, find something dubious about the other side to spread the blame and signal that this is a fight of the mutually destructive kind.

The parties had already tried to draw the truce line on this scandal cycle – the prime minister has ordered an inquiry into Australia’s espionage and foreign influence laws and has said he will introduce laws to ban foreign donations in the spring. Labor backs the foreign donations ban and is demanding an inquiry into foreign interference by the powerful joint intelligence and security committee as well.

But while a foreign donations ban is a good idea, it can’t solve the underlying problem. Are foreign donors really the only ones who might seek influence in return for their generosity? Will we ever get to the bottom of the allegations now in the news, or the next lot that surface?

As things stand, no. Like all the previous scandals, this one is likely to blow over – not because the allegations have been clearly disproven but because we don’t have the tools to know anything for sure. Perhaps something serious will end up being swept under the carpet. Perhaps, as the Chinese ambassador said this week, damage to a bilateral relationship will have been done for no good cause.

Good journalism can show donations coinciding with decision-making, or donations coinciding with favours and access, or politicians that may have gained some personal advantage from a decision they played a part in, but without some way to compel donors or recipients or decision-makers to provide answers it is almost always impossible to prove causation, or wrongdoing.

But every coincidence of privileged access and power, every apparent connection between donation and outcome, undermines voters’ already shaky faith in the fairness and integrity of the system.

Corruption or integrity commissions have the power to prove whether things are, in fact, connected. That’s how a series of stories about possible wrongdoing by Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald turned into court proceedings that landed both men in jail.

That’s how the voters of New South Wales are now getting to hear the astonishing allegations that the former head of not-for-profit organisations benefiting migrant women, Eman Sharobeem, used taxpayers’ money to pay for everything from diamond necklaces, cars and property to dental work and liposuction, and how they will hear Icac’s verdict on the claims.

That’s how Queenslanders are hearing equally gobsmacking allegations about electoral fundraising by local councils and the favours that might have been done in return.

In those states, and also in Western Australia and South Australia, voters know there are permanent powerful bodies that can investigate allegations of misconduct and corruption. There is legitimate debate about some of how they operate – whether hearings should be in public or in private or how corruption should be defined – but not about whether they are needed.

But still the federal parliament responds to each new allegation with mutual blaming and minimum procedural change, eroding voters’ trust a little bit more each time.



The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has said he is open to the idea of an integrity commission and the Greens and Nick Xenophon have campaigned for it for years. The inquiry reports in August.

Something really needs to give this time, because a devastating proportion of Australians agree with Reverend Dempster’s sincere concerns. And more than 80% think a national integrity commission is a great idea.