Last month our government delivered on its promise to the Australian people to return integrity, honesty and accountability to politics by legislating a powerful, transparent and independent National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The Albanese Government’s National Anti-Corruption Commission will:

• Have broad jurisdiction to investigate serious or systemic corrupt conduct across the Commonwealth public sector by ministers, parliamentarians and their staff, statutory officer holders, employees of all government entities and government contractors;

• Operate independent of government, with discretion to commence inquiries on its own initiative or in response to referrals, including from whistleblowers and the public;

• Be overseen by a statutory Parliamentary Joint Committee, empowered to require the Commission to provide information about its work;

• Have the power to investigate allegations of serious or systemic corruption that occurred before or after its establishment;

• Have the power to hold public hearings in exceptional circumstances and where it is in the public interest to do so;

• Be empowered to make findings of fact, including findings of corrupt conduct, and refer findings that could constitute criminal conduct to the Australian Federal Police or the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions; and

• Operate with procedural fairness and its findings will be subject to judicial review.

The legislation also provides strong protections for whistle-blowers and exemptions for journalists to protect the identity of sources.

We have committed $262 million in funding to the Commission to ensure it is properly resourced and ready to begin its important work from mid-2023.