Budget proves Morrison Government has no integrity

The Federal Budget shows the Morrison Government has no interest in making itself accountable to the public with no money and no staff allocated to the long-promised Commonwealth Integrity Commission, while proposing to spend yet more millions on harassing construction workers.

“The stench of corruption around the government Morrison leads means even his colleagues know ‘a fish stinks from the head’,“ said Dave Noonan, CFMEU National Construction Division Secretary.

“This stench makes a properly constituted and funded Integrity Commission too great a political liability, so they will just pay lip service to the idea while refusing to fund it in the Budget.”

“Yet the hypocrites in the Morrison Government will continue their crusade against construction workers by allocating more than $35m to their anti-worker attack dog, the ABCC for 2022/23.”

“This is the same organisation that fines workers for demanding fair pay and a safe work environment while running a protection racket for dodgy bosses who steal their wages and put their lives at risk.”

“It is extraordinary that a construction worker who attends a stop-work meeting can be subjected to fines and legal threats including jail, while the politicians that make the unjust laws targeting avoid accountability.”

“Not only has this government yet again failed to commit anything to a Federal ICAC, they have also cut funding to a raft of bodies that scrutinise government and provide important oversight of the way it operates.”

“This includes cuts to the Commonwealth Ombudsman from $47.7 million in 2022-23 to $41.9 million in 2025-26, and the Australian Human Rights Commission which has had its budget slashed by more than one third – from $32.6 million expended in 2021-22 down to $20 million in 2025-26.”

“A government with this track record of avoiding scrutiny of its actions and decisions is one that deserves political oblivion at the ballot box.”