On Sunday, we reported that Crown had paid a brothel owner and alleged money launderer, Simon Pan, to lure rich Asian gamblers to its casinos in Australia. The reports raised the possibility that Pan was laundering the proceeds of crime through Crown's gaming rooms, turning dirty money into "clean". Point two. On the same day, we also reported the former head of Border Force, an agency within Home Affairs, saying that he'd been lobbied by federal politicians on Crown's behalf. Two ministers and another MP had asked Roman Quaedvlieg to "smooth out" border procedures for Crown's big gamblers, he told Nine media. He refused to name the politicians. Point three. Loading On Monday we reported that a business partner of Crown Resorts, Tom Zhou, is an alleged criminal fugitive with an Interpol "red" notice issued against him for financial crime. He's supposed to be arrested as soon as he crosses any international border. Crown had been using Zhou to recruit rich Chinese gamblers to bet at its tables. We also reported that Zhou is the head of several organisations deployed by the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department covertly to establish party influence inside Australia. He travelled to Australia on at least one occasion on a gambling junket in the company of the cousin of Xi Jinping, President of China. The Australian Federal Police searched their plane but Zhou was allowed to fly out nonetheless. Point four.

Only a few days earlier, another news outlet, The Australian, reported the outgoing head of ASIO, Duncan Lewis, saying that foreign espionage activity inside Australia was at "unprecedented" levels. ASIO's annual report used the same word - "unprecedented". Lewis said that attempted foreign interference by Australia's adversaries, including cyber attacks and traditional spy craft — as well as unwelcome influence within Australia’s political system — was now widespread. Point five. Director General of ASIO Duncan Lewis. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer In another Herald report this week, it was revealed that major Australian companies including Crown had an arrangement with the Immigration Department, now part of Home Affairs, to fast-track visa applications for important foreign clients. "The deal with Crown casinos was put in place by the Howard government in 2003 and last renewed by the Gillard government in June 2011 before it ended in 2016", under the Turnbull government. The arrangement lapsed when Crown staff in China were arrested for breaking Chinese anti-gambling law. Point six.

At this point the crossbenchers in Federal Parliament were getting worked up. Labor remained conspicuously mute. But the Greens MP, Adam Bandt, jumped up in question time and put this to Prime Minister Scott Morrison: "Reports have emerged that a wanted criminal wasn't arrested when he first landed in Australia and that his plane was recently searched on the tarmac but allowed to leave the country, even though an Interpol notice was in force ... and that ministers have lobbied Home Affairs to ensure that high rollers can fly into the country and drive to Crown casino with a minimal amount of clearances. Can you assure the house that none of your ministers lobbied Home Affairs or its agencies on behalf of Crown casino, which would breach your ministerial code of conduct, and can you also guarantee that no Home Affairs officials have acted improperly in these matters?" Loading Morrison replied that these were serious matters, that law enforcement agencies were hard at work, and that "there has been nothing presented to me that would indicate there are any matters there for me to address". Unsurprisingly, this astonishingly dismissive response did nothing to reassure the independents and crossbench members of Parliament. Nor did it stop the revelations, which the Herald kept firing off day after day for the rest of the week, too much to summarise here. But I will add just one more because it exposes the daunting scale of the challenge Australia faces. On Wednesday, the Herald reported a detail about Huang Xiangmo, whom ASIO has banned from returning to Australia because of allegations he was one of the Chinese Communist Party's biggest agents of influence in Australia. Wednesday's reports said that Huang was a valued Crown VIP who had gambled $800 million at Crown's tables in a single year after moving to Australia.

This put into proportion the sums of money that Huang spent to cultivate the NSW Right faction Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, now disgraced. Or to bankroll the NSW Right faction's elder statesman Bob Carr to head his pro-China "research institute" at the University of Technology Sydney, which Carr has now left. Or to buy Huang's $12.8 million Mosman house. It was all just spare change for Huang. Despite Morrison's pathetic Monday response, by Tuesday his Attorney-General, Christian Porter, saw that something had to be done. Something, but not too much. The crossbench and independent MPs were demanding a parliamentary inquiry into the Crown revelations. Labor and the government united to kill this off. Illustration: John Shakespeare Credit: Instead, Porter announced that he would refer the whole ugly, stinking mess to the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. This is a little known body responsible for policing the federal police and other federal law enforcement agencies. Porter called it a "precautionary referral". He flatly rejected any accusation that Crown clients had been shown special favour with visa processing; that expedited processing was a standard arrangement for many large organisations, Porter said, granted under both sides of politics over the years. The problem? The ACLEI is only empowered to investigate law enforcement officials. Not MPs or others. So immigration, customs, border force, yes. Ministers, MPs, business people, drug traffickers, money launderers, agents of Communist Party interference, casino managers, no.

The bigger problem? Australia's major political parties - both of them - have lost any sense of outrage on the people's behalf, lost any capacity to respond in the national interest. The independents and crossbench members took up the task. They came together on Wednesday to demand anew the reform that all of Australia can see is desperately needed - a federal anti-corruption body. How can Australia possibly justify having an independent anti-corruption watchdog in every state, but none federally? Does a magic circle of saintly virtue repulse all temptation at the border of the Australian Capital Territory? Where the contracts are biggest, the picking richest, the temptations greatest, the protections weakest? Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: If it weren't already stunningly obvious to everyone - other than the two main political parties - Australia needs a federal anti-corruption watchdog, and one with teeth. Or, as the inimitable Jacqui Lambie put it at the crossbenchers' press conference: "I want more tooth than Jaws, I'll be honest with you. You know, I'll tell you now, I would consider telling them where to stick their bills until they put some law and discipline on themselves because I've had a gutful of it." After initially stonewalling reporters, Crown Resorts, its share price hit hard by the revelations, published full-page ads in newspapers on Thursday in a rearguard effort to salvage something of its reputation. The Herald refused the ads and ran a point-by-point rebuttal of Crown's claims instead.

But while Crown is a conspicuous focus of all this activity, the real challenge for Australia is not one corporation but the larger and deeper matter of how it deals with corruption. Corruption entwined with powerful foreign governments and hostile influence programs running hard against our country, working intimately with organised crime and state-sponsored espionage. Loading The independent MP from Tasmania, Andrew Wilkie, used what he called the "c-word" this week: "Corruption seems to be the word we don't utter in this place. But by my standards and I think the standards of many in the community, it is patently a corruption of governance and proper process when a politician takes a large donation from someone and does something for them in return."

Wilkie said that the exchange of favours that occurs routinely in federal politics may not be criminally corrupt but that to any ordinary member of the public it was completely corrupt morally: "And that stuff goes on in this place every day." Last year the Coalition finally joined the Greens and Labor in agreeing that Australia needs a National Integrity Commission. The design Christian Porter proposed last year was emphatically rejected by the opposition and the independents as too weak, but he'll bring it forward later this year in any case and the negotiations will begin. But until and unless a serious and powerful National Integrity Commission is in place, Australia, in the eyes of its own people, has no integrity.