Mr FINN (Western Metropolitan) -- It is fascinating to see the reaction of the Premier, Mr Brumby, whenever this subject is raised. It is fascinating to see Mr Brumby go into a bit of a frenzy whenever a suggestion is made that we should have an independent anticorruption commission. It is interesting to see how his top lip starts to quiver a bit, and the beads of sweat start to gather at his brow.

One has to wonder why that is the case.

Last Sunday morning I woke up at a ridiculously early hour, I have to say. I turned the radio on, and there was the Premier of this state telling all who cared to listen that having an independent anticorruption commission in this state would be an enormous waste of money. It would employ lawyers. It would not do any good and it would not help anybody; it would just be an employer of lawyers.

Later that very morning I went -- I was going anyway -- to the anticorruption commission conference. I had the opportunity of asking the incoming Attorney-General of New South Wales, Greg Smith, SC, what is his view of the anticorruption commission. Having explained to him what our Premier had said about an anticorruption commission being just an employer of lawyers, a very expensive waste of money and really not doing too much at all, I asked Greg Smith what his response to that was. Greg Smith is a former DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) of New South Wales, has had extensive experience with the anticorruption commission in New South Wales and as I recall has worked with it on a number of occasions. His response was a very simple one.

He said to me and the substantial gathering at the conference on Sunday that he just does not understand what Mr Brumby is on about, because his view of an independent anticrime commission is that there would be very few lawyers indeed, because most of those on the payroll, if I can use that term, would be made up of investigators -- that is, the people actually investigating corruption and finding out if there is corruption.

I thought about it on my way home that day. It is true that an ICAC (independent commission against corruption) does not need lawyers. The people charged under an ICAC need lawyers, so what is the Premier of Victoria worried about? Perhaps he is thinking about his own legal bills, if an ICAC ever comes in. Perhaps that is what he is worried about because, having contemplated that question -- --

Mr Viney -- On a point of order, President, that was a fairly ordinary implication on the Premier of Victoria to suggest that if there were an ICAC, the Premier would need lawyers. I think the member should be called to order for saying something grubby like that and should withdraw it.

Mr FINN -- On the point of order, President, I did not state that the Premier would need lawyers if an ICAC came in. I said perhaps if; I think there were about three 'ifs' in the whole sentence, so it is a fairly long bow for Mr Viney to be drawing in saying I have made an implication or accusation of the kind he is suggesting.

Hon. T. C. Theophanous interjected.

The PRESIDENT -- Order! It has been suggested to me that I should make a political judgement here, but I do not have that luxury.

However, I will say that what was said is at the margins and given that it was about the Premier and given also the status of the Premier, Mr Finn might like to rephrase what he said. There is a clear implication there, in my view, and I think most people who read that would have the same feeling as I have about the implication.

Mr FINN -- President, I am trying to think how I would rephrase it in such a way that would meet with your approval. I am just suggesting why the Premier gets so nervous whenever the suggestion of an ICAC is proposed. Perhaps I will just leave it to other people to draw their own conclusions on that.

There is one area where a number of people, including the Premier, would have reason to be very nervous if an ICAC ever came to Victoria. If we had had an independent anticrime commission over the past 12 months, we would have seen the truth come out about the Brimbank City Council.

We would not have seen the cover-up by this government that we have witnessed over the past 12 months, because the depth of corruption and the shenanigans that went on and perhaps continues to go on in certain quarters in Brimbank are things that I believe deserve the full light of scrutiny, and they have not received the full light of scrutiny. The Ombudsman's report -- --

Hon. T. C. Theophanous -- Certainly not from you.

Mr FINN -- I will get to Mr Theophanous in a minute; he should not worry. The Ombudsman's report made it very clear that something did not smell right in the city of Brimbank, and the Ombudsman's report was correct. Given the short time that the Ombudsman had to investigate the Brimbank City Council, there is no way on this earth that he or anybody else could fathom the depths to which the corruption in Brimbank had permeated the entire system.

We saw in that Ombudsman's report a number of what I suppose might be called small-time operators caught, named and exposed. We saw a number of local councillors named for doing various things and accusations of various things that were not, you would have to say, necessarily hanging offences. They were hung anyway, by the way, but I will get to that in a minute. We saw, for example, Hakki Suleyman, a small-time factional operator in the Australian Labor Party, hung out to dry. He was using, it is alleged, and I understand it to be true, an office of a local member of Parliament, the Minister for Planning, the Honourable Justin Madden, to run his empire. That empire had seen his daughter, Natalie, elected as mayor of the City of Brimbank, a position which she used with significant and considerable ruthlessness, I have to say, and I have witnessed it myself.

Hakki and Natalie Suleyman are not the most delightful of individuals but they may not be exactly at the top of the tree, either. I do not think anybody who knows either of those people could say that they would have the brains to be behind the outrages committed against the people of Brimbank by some people in and around the Brimbank City Council. We will never know, because we do not have an independent commission to investigate these matters. We do not have a chance to dig deeper to find out who did what to whom and how many times.

Then we have Justin Madden, a member of this house. I am acutely aware, President, that I cannot suggest too strongly some of the things he may have been involved in, but I think we can say quite conclusively from the Ombudsman's report that a lot of the carry-on that we saw in Brimbank was coming from his office. Whether the minister had any idea that was happening or not, again, we do not know. That is the problem about not having an independent commission -- we can never find out.

We will never know what Justin Madden knew and did not know. That is the problem we face. We need to find out. We need to get to the truth, and we cannot because we do not have a commission the likes of which we are talking about here this afternoon.

Then there are Mr Theophanous and his brother, Andrew, who are referred to with much affection in the north-western suburbs as the Theophani. They were mentioned in less than glowing terms, it has to be said, in the Ombudsman's report. Mr Theophanous has had his fair whack at the Ombudsman as a result of that, and I do not want to start all that again.

I would like know -- --

Hon. T. C. Theophanous -- Why not?

Mr FINN -- You only have one day left, so let us not waste it on Brimbank. I would like to know exactly what was going on. I would like to know exactly what was going on because I have heard allegations of what Mr Theophanous was supposed to have done. I do not know whether he did those things or not -- I am not going to repeat those allegations -- but I have heard those allegations.

Ms Huppert -- That is very forbearing of you.

Mr FINN -- I would have thought so. I have heard those allegations and I would like to know as a legislator and as a representative of the people of Brimbank if those allegations are true, and if they are not true, I would like the name of Mr Theophanous cleared completely.

I would like to be able to say to my constituents who come to me with these stories about Mr Theophanous, 'That that is not true; he did not do that; he would not do that; he is a man of honour', but I cannot do that because we do not have a commission to investigate the sorts of allegations that were made. I cannot say the same thing about Mr Theophanous's brother, Andrew.

When people come to me with allegations about what Andrew Theophanous and Sam David did with the mayoralty I have absolutely no idea who offered what to whom and so forth, if indeed any of that sort of thing happened at all. I have no idea, and why do I have no idea? Why can I not get up and say, 'That is not true'? I cannot do that because we have not got a commission to investigate it, and that is what we need. That is what this motion is about today. It is about clearing people's names and about catching crooks who need to be caught.

I have mentioned a few of the names mentioned in the Ombudsman's report, and it has to be said that we have glossed over that report to a very large degree, but what we have missed out on as a result of not having an independent anticrime commission is finding out the truth about those who were not mentioned in the Ombudsman's report. These are people who were involved and are still involved in the internal politics of the Australian Labor Party in and around the City of Brimbank and who may have played a role in the corruption and the chicanery that went on in the Brimbank council. We will never know what the Deputy Premier knew. We have to remember that the Deputy Premier's electorate is the Assembly seat of Niddrie. The Niddrie electorate extends right into Keilor village, so he represents Brimbank. In fact Justin Madden's office is in the Niddrie Assembly electorate.

When all of this was exposed the Deputy Premier went on television and he was shocked; he was supposedly horrified.

He tried to tell us he did not know any of this was going on. I have to say to the house that I found and still find that extremely difficult to believe; in fact I find it impossible to believe. If we had an independent commission which could investigate what the Deputy Premier knew, we could investigate the Deputy Premier's involvement.

Hon. T. C. Theophanous -- What about your involvement?

Mr FINN -- I am very happy to talk about my involvement -- absolutely; any time, Mr Theophanous -- but let us talk about what Mr Hulls knew. If we had an independent commission, we could find out. We could find out the role that the Premier played. You have to remember that when the Premier

of the state came into the Victorian Parliament he came in via a by-election in the former Doutta Galla province. Where is Doutta Galla based? It is based in Brimbank. He was put into Parliament by the very people we are talking about and have been talking about, who were in the Ombudsman's report and those who were not in the Ombudsman's report and perhaps should have been. If we had an independent commission to investigate these matters, we could find out the role of the Premier of this state and what he knew and what he did not know. Again, he denied all knowledge of what had been going on in Brimbank.

Hon. T. C. Theophanous interjected.

Mr FINN -- Mr Theophanous knows exactly what was going on in Brimbank; I know what is going on in Brimbank, and the Premier tries to tell us that he does not.

Mr Lenders -- On a point of order, President, I take offence at the implications cast on the Premier and the Deputy Premier by Mr Finn. He is by his words accusing them of corruption, and I ask him to withdraw his inferences about the Premier and Deputy Premier and their involvement.

Mr FINN -- On the point of order, President, on any reading of this there is no way that anybody could suggest that I am accusing either the Premier or the Deputy Premier of corruption. In fact the word was not used, not at all. All I said was that an independent commission would be able to investigate what certain people knew, including the Premier and the Deputy Premier. Therefore I believe that no withdrawal and no apology is necessary.

Mr O'Donohue -- Further on the point of order, President, Mr Finn in his contribution said that an anticorruption commission would give members of Parliament and others the opportunity to clear their names completely.

The PRESIDENT -- Order! I advise Mr O'Donohue that that is not a point of order.

In response to the point of order taken by the Leader of the Government regarding Mr Finn's inference that the Premier and/or Deputy Premier are corrupt, I find that the member is entitled to take offence on behalf of another member who is either not in the chamber or is in the other place. Because deep down I think I, like everyone else here, would read that Mr Finn is inferring just that, I ask him to withdraw the inference that both the Premier and the Deputy Premier are corrupt and that in some way an independent commission against corruption would expose that.

Mr FINN -- Mr President, I withdraw, but the cover-up continues even into this Parliament, which is a great pity. Perhaps we have another name we can add to the list.

An independent commission against corruption could expose -- --

Hon. T. C. Theophanous interjected.

Mr FINN -- No, I will not use the word 'expose'; I will say 'investigate'. Mr Theophanous is very touchy about that, as is Mr Lenders. I did not know that Mr Lenders had such a keen interest in what was going on in Brimbank, but perhaps he has his fingers in the pie as well. Perhaps that is another reason we need another independent commission: to investigate Mr Lenders. What does he know? What is he covering up? What has he been sitting on all these years? Perhaps that is exactly why we need an independent commission: to investigate some of the shenanigans that have been going on in this state for far too long.

We need an independent commission to investigate why the Minister for Local Government, Richard Wynne, sat on his hands for as long as he did when everybody was telling him exactly what was going on in Brimbank. Everybody! People in this Parliament, people in the community, people at the council level were telling Richard Wynne, 'This is going on in Brimbank' -- and he sat on his hands! If the Ombudsman had not investigated and if Mrs Powell, the member for Shepparton in the other house, had not written to the Ombudsman requesting an investigation, the minister would still be sitting on his hands. It would seem that the last thing the Minister for Local Government wanted to do was something; he is pretty good at that! The last thing he wanted to do was to act on the reports he had been receiving. An independent commission could investigate why the Minister for Local Government failed to do his job. An independent commission could investigate why the Minister for Local Government let the people of Brimbank down.

A number of others perhaps could be brought out in an investigation by an independent commission, people like Bill Shorten, the federal member for Maribyrnong. It is well known that Bill Shorten is a factional head kicker. He will more than kick your head, as a number of people in this chamber could attest, and given half a chance he will kick it off! What role did he play? I too have heard rumours about Bill Shorten's role in this. I have heard stories about Bill Shorten's involvement with various people at and around Brimbank council. I would like to know if they are true. Without an investigation and an independent commission we

cannot find out. Here we have a man who is destined, so he will tell us, to be Prime Minister of Australia, but we cannot find out the truth about him because we do not have an independent commission.

The same applies to a bloke called Senator Stephen Conroy -- another bloke out there pulling the strings in Brimbank. We cannot find out exactly what he did or what he was up to; we cannot find out because we do not have an independent commission to ask the questions. We do not have an independent commission to investigate what was going on with Stephen Conroy. The same applies with Brendan O'Connor, the federal member for Gorton, who is out there playing games and all sorts of funny tricks -- I cleaned that up! There is no way that we can find out exactly what Brendan O'Connor was up to -- if anything -- because we do not have an independent commission.

The only thing we can be absolutely sure of is that the Brimbank council and its predecessors in Sunshine and Keilor have been crooked for years, and that is a direct result of control by the local branches, the war lords and the factions of the Australian Labor Party. We cannot get to the bottom of it; we cannot find out the truth -- and surely that is what we should be aiming for -- without an independent commission to investigate and find out what that truth is.

What was the government's response? It was to sack the council and forget the whole thing ever happened. That was a nonsensical approach, because the issue was, and continues to be, far deeper than can be resolved by the dismissal of a council. The government just shut down the whole thing and began one of the better cover-ups that I have seen of recent times. There may be some people listening to this debate who will come to the conclusion that that cover-up is continuing into this house this afternoon.

There is much reason for an independent anticrime commission in Victoria. I have given only one example. I could discuss the independent police office and investigations that are going on there. I could refer to a number of areas. However, I want to stick with the motion, because my great concern is what George Seitz, the member for Keilor in the other house, did. When I have raised this matter in this chamber over the past few years, all I wanted was justice for the people of Brimbank. All I wanted was a fair go for the people of Brimbank and for the truth to come out. That has not happened. The truth has been buried by a government scared of the truth and terrified that the truth will come out.

If we had an independent anticrime commission, we could find out the truth and find out exactly what happened in Brimbank. We could bring those who had done the wrong thing to heel and clear the names of those who were wrongly accused.

However, we cannot because the Premier of this state will not institute an independent anticrime commission. He knows why he will not do that. At some stage he might like to share his reasons, because the reasons he gave just last Sunday do not wash. They do not hold water; they make no sense at all.

I commend Mr O'Donohue for moving this motion before the house. This is an extremely important matter which goes to the very integrity of government. It goes to whether people in the street -- taxpayers, voters, call them what you will -- can trust their government, their elected officials, whether they be in state, federal or local government. That is very important.

For too long we have heard -- you, President, have heard it, no doubt -- people say, 'We can't trust you lot; you are all crooks'. They have said it to me, and I have no doubt they have said it to you, President. I am sure they have. We want to clean up the image of politicians in this country.

We want to clean up the image of elected legislators in this state and in this country. An independent anticrime commission will do just that. For that reason and that reason alone we should adopt this immediately, and we should most certainly support Mr O'Donohue's motion here this afternoon.