Australia needs a Serious Fraud and Corruption Office to tackle corporate crime and building industry rorts, the nation's leading anti-corruption group has said.
In a bid to resolve the political impasse over the Turnbull government's proposed building industry reforms, Transparency International Australia (TIA) is pushing for the creation of a new crime-fighting agency to take over the Australian Federal Police's responsibility for investigating fraud and corruption and do the work of the proposed Building and Construction Commission. 
TIA chair Anthony Whealy, QC, also said Federal Parliament needed to implement a national integrity commission and parliamentary integrity commissioner to police public-sector corruption.
Federal politicians from both major parties have long resisted calls for a national public-sector anti-corruption agency, claiming state-based bodies such as the NSW ICAC were adequate and that federal MPs and public servants had traditionally had fewer corruption problems than their state-based counterparts.
Australia has slipped from sixth to 12th position on Transparency International's worldwide corruption perception index since 2012, with the federal police struggling to lay charges in several long-running and high-profile foreign bribery probes.
Mr Whealy's proposals are timely given the recent revelations about the use of overseas tax havens by hundreds of wealthy Australians, the Commonwealth Bank's insurance scandal and the involvement of major Australian companies such as Leighton Holdings and Worley Parsons with allegedly corrupt foreign middlemen in the international energy sector.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has declared that a Labor government would hold a royal commission into the financial sector in the wake of recent scandals. But the Coalition - which has held a royal commission into the trade union movement - is resisting calls for a similar inquiry into the big end of town, arguing that the powers of regulators such as ASIC are sufficient.
Mr Whealy said the adoption of Transparency International Australia's proposal to establish a new agency to handle corporate and building industry crime would resolve the Senate deadlock over the Turnbull government's proposed building industry integrity reforms.
"If the government is serious about fighting corruption in the building industry - and I'm sure it is - then it is time to deal with economic and industrial corruption as a whole, in a coherent, holistic way that aligns with Commonwealth responsibilities," he said.
"Recent events have demonstrated corruption does not respect artificial boundaries between jurisdictions, industries or industrial roles."
Mr Whealy said the Serous Fraud and Corruption Office would be modelled on similar agencies in Britain and New Zealand, and staffed by highly specialised officers.
"The government should use this opportunity to upgrade resources for fighting serious bribery, extortion, fraud and money laundering - wherever it breaches Commonwealth law, whether by unionists, business or officials, and whether it is domestic or foreign," he said.