Hands tied: PM’s anti-corruption commission is comparatively powerless:
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No public hearings? Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission is deeply flawed in its current conception under the authorship of Attorney-General Christian Porter and the Attorney-General’s department. Try this from the issues paper released on Thursday: “The CIC will not investigate direct complaints about ministers, members of Parliament or their staff received from the public at large”. The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption was able to crack corruption at the highest levels of government because it had a “Report Corruption Here” button on its website. It was this button used for an anonymous tip-off that led to the jailing of former Labor power broker Eddie Obeid, former minister Ian [Michael] Macdonald and a mining union boss over gaming of coal mining licences worth tens of millions of dollars. Former ICAC commissioner David Ipp QC said the informant told ICAC to get onto a rort: “A minister is involved”. Equipped with the tip-off directly from a member of the public, ICAC used its coercive powers including search warrant raids on premises and telecommunications intercepts to catch the corrupt. Instead, the PM’s current model establishes the CIC as an over-arching, two-pronged (law enforcement and public administration) agency that is to take referrals from established government agencies and regulators who must mandatorily report their reasonable suspicions. But those suspicions must meet a perceived threshold test of criminality. Who knows what is criminal or corrupt until any suspicious rock is lifted by an effective standing royal commission with the full armoury of coercive powers? But under the PM’s CIC model “the public will continue to be able to make complaints through existing mechanisms – for example, by reporting a matter to a department or agency, or to another integrity agency like the Ombudsman or AFP. Those agencies will then determine whether the matter should be referred to the CIC in accordance with the referral arrangements indicated above.” This sets up barriers and hurdles to direct public tip-offs to the CIC, which should be empowered to undertake covert surveillance, or an undercover operation with phone-tap warrants to catch the corrupt “chockers and starkers,” a technical term meaning evidence of the highest probative value. Unless the participants are incompetent, corruption is conducted in the strictest secrecy. It is difficult to crack unless tactics and powers are covert. But just one thread of evidence, a vague irregularity or a chance sighting relayed by an observant informant can make all the difference. Although there is provision for both public and private hearings into corruption in the Commonwealth’s existing law enforcement agencies, including the Australian Federal Police, significantly public hearings are to be prohibited for all other areas of public administration. Why? Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he does not want a “kangaroo court” or
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