The Victorian Greens have accused Jacinta Allan's Labor Government of weasel words and kicking the can down the road on corruption after the government failed to fully support a single recommendation from the Integrity Oversight Committee's report into IBAC and committed to absolutely nothing to fix IBAC.
Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog has repeatedly warned that its powers are too narrow and that it is unable to investigate many allegations of potential corruption because of legal restrictions imposed by successive governments.
It comes as the government has waited to the final moment to respond to the IOC's report into IBAC, with their response due to be tabled in Parliament this week.
The Greens say that the government's response to the IOC's report should've been Labor's opportunity to actually fix IBAC, but they've dished out some weasel words and a review of a review, but that no amount of PR changes the fact that they've committed to absolutely nothing.
As stated by the Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell:
"Labor's doing nothing to fix corruption, they're just saying whatever they need to say to make the political headache go away while actually doing nothing. We don't need a review of a review and more weasel words, we need to actually fix the corruption in this state that's seen billions of taxpayer dollars go lost and unchecked on Labor's major infrastructure projects."
As stated by the Victorian Greens integrity spokesperson Dr Tim Read:
"These are weasel words from Jacinta Allan's Labor Government but in their best effort to try and spin themselves out of a political problem in an election year, the reality is that Labor's committed to absolutely nothing in this response.
"IBAC has made abundantly clear the powers it needs to investigate corruption. We don't need a review of a review, or weasel words, we need to fix our anti-corruption watchdog so that it can root out corruption on Labor's Big Build and anywhere else."
