Scott Morrison has ratcheted up his warnings against a powerful national anti-corruption commission, arguing handing control over to “faceless officials” could turn Australia into “some kind of public autocracy”.
Amid growing political pressure on the Coalition over its failure to meet its previous election promise to legislate a commonwealth integrity commission, the prime minister told the Nine newspapers politicians were accountable to voters at elections.
He argued elected members should be able to allocate funding for infrastructure and community grants and without undue fear of public servants investigating those decisions.
Labor, which has promised to establish a national anti-corruption commission “with teeth” by the end of the year if it wins the 21 May election, said the comments showed Morrison’s “true colours are emerging now”.
The government is also facing pressure from “teal independents” who have placed an integrity commission alongside climate action at the centre of their campaigns to unseat Liberal MPs.
The Liberal premier of New South Wales, Dominic Perrottet, said on Tuesday that Morrison “absolutely” went too far in describing his state’s anti-corruption watchdog as a “kangaroo court”.
Morrison on Wednesday brushed off criticism from the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) commissioner, Stephen Rushton, who had described critics who used the “kangaroo court” term as “buffoons”.
“I stand by what I’ve said,” Morrison told reporters.
“He can say whatever he likes. I’m not easily offended. I think you’ve learned that about me … I just don’t think that their model is the right model at a federal level.”
In the new interview, published on Wednesday, Morrison played down the prospect of a compromise in the next term of parliament. He argued the government’s draft legislation – which he never introduced into the parliament for debate – was “very good”.
The prime minister said he understood why people wanted such a body at a federal level, but he also argued that if it were designed poorly “it could cause a lot of damage”. The prime minister said he was “trying to prevent a massive mistake”.
“The unintended consequences of an ill-thought-through integrity commission, I think are very dangerous,” Morrison said in the interview with the Nine newspapers.
“If we are going to so disempower our elected representatives to do things about what is needed in their communities, then what is the point?”
Morrison continued to argue that a new commission should focus on criminality rather than accusations of pork-barrelling.
“We can’t just hand government over to faceless officials to make decisions that impact the lives of Australians from one end of the country to the other. I actually think there’s a great danger in that,” Morrison told the papers.
“It wouldn’t be Australia any more if that was the case, it would be some kind of public autocracy.”
The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said Morrison had engaged in “extraordinary attacks on a legal process”.
“This prime minister just dismisses any integrity issues,” Albanese said. “What is very clear is that if Australians want a national anti-corruption commission and to clean up politics, they need a Labor government to do so.”
The federal Labor leader also said there was “an extraordinary split between Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison” over whether it was appropriate to call the NSW Icac a kangaroo court.
Frydenberg, the treasurer, is facing a battle to retain his Victorian seat of Kooyong amid a challenge from the independent candidate Monique Ryan. Frydenberg declined to echo Morrison’s language during an interview on ABC TV on Wednesday.
Asked whether he would describe Icac as a kangaroo court, Frydenberg said: “I would use different words … We’ll all use our own words to explain our own positions.”
The shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said Morrison’s latest comments showed the prime minister was never serious about legislating an anti-corruption commission.
“His true colours are emerging now,” Chalmers told ABC Radio National on Wednesday.
“This is what he really thinks and he’s been lying about wanting a national anti-corruption commission this whole time.”
The federal government’s proposed model, which was released as an exposure draft, was widely condemned as weak.
It had no ability to conduct public hearings for government corruption, despite allowing such hearings for law enforcement matters, and sets a very high bar for investigations to commence.
Morrison is a longstanding critic of the NSW Icac over its investigation into the former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian’s secret relationship with MP Daryl Maguire and her alleged failure to declare a conflict while involved in grants for his electorate of Wagga Wagga. Berejiklian has denied any wrongdoing and Icac is yet to hand down its findings.
After Rushton described critics who used the “kangaroo court” term, including the prime minister, as “buffoons” at an parliament inquiry on Monday, Perrottet used a press conference on Tuesday to throw his support behind the watchdog.
Perrottet said the Icac “plays an important role in upholding integrity and confidence in politicians and in public servants in our state”.
The premier underlined the need to raise any concerns “in a way that doesn’t undermine confidence in our integrity agencies”.
