Michael McGuire: Why were the ICAC reforms passed so quickly?

A disgraceful performance, rushed through with barely any debate. Read Advertiser columnist Michael McGuire’s blistering take-down of the way the ICAC reforms were passed.

At 5.16pm last Thursday, the state’s Attorney-General Vickie Chapman stood in the House of Assembly and moved that the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (CPIPC recommendations) Amendment Bill be read a second time.

What followed was one of the more bizarre hours of parliamentary debate South Australia has ever seen. An hour in which some of the most substantial and far-reaching law-and-order legislation presented to the parliament in many a year was waved through, barely a question asked.

By 6.15pm, the private members’ bill, which was introduced in the upper house by SA Best’s Frank Pangallo the previous day, had been read a third time and passed without even the need for a vote on it.

It was a truly remarkable performance by the state’s MPs.

No one is saying there was not a need for reform of the ICAC. No one is saying that the ICAC couldn’t have been improved. Over its life, the ICAC has been criticised for its secrecy, its lack of transparency, its heavy-handedness, its lack of successful prosecutions and the lives damaged along the way. That it needed to focus more on corruption rather than maladministration and misconduct.

But this was not the way to do it.

Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, Ann Vanstone. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

Not rushed through with barely a murmur. Not explained to the SA public, not debated.

The state’s MPs can hardly now complain when the public asks – what are you trying to hide? What level of self-interest was involved that such significant legislation needed to be rushed through so quickly?

Especially at a time when the ICAC is investigating a number of MPs for the country members’ allowance scandal. Also a time when the state’s ombudsman has referred a matter of “potential” corruption, maladministration or misconduct within the Liberal Party, relating to its use and collection of personal data, to the Office of Public Integrity and therefore ICAC. Under the new bill, it’s unlikely the ICAC could look at such a referral.

At the same time, there has been little explanation of why this new bill is further strengthening the already extraordinary protections offered by parliamentary privilege.

Commissioner Ann Vanstone told parliament last week: “The first thing that hits one in the eye is that the shelter for politicians, that is parliamentary privilege, is to be built into a 20-foot wall. An immediate aim seems to be to protect themselves from scrutiny.”

That bare hour of “debate” in the lower house makes for strange and sad reading in Hansard.

It was introduced by Chapman, the Attorney-General who has barely said a public word about the pros and cons of the legislation.

Then Labor’s Tom Koutsantonis, who had his own stoush with ICAC over the failed Gillman land deal, congratulated the AG on how well she had handled the legislation.

A fact that even surprised the AG: “At the outset, I have to say that I do not get praise from the member for West Torrens very often.’’

Much of the rest of the debate was about whether the MPs being investigated should be allowed to vote on the bill. In the end it was irrelevant. No vote was needed. There was no dissent. It was pathetic.

But the absurdities just piled up. Pangallo’s bill was introduced on Wednesday in the upper house. By Thursday it passed the lower house. That Wednesday, Vanstone fronted a hearing to tell MPs the bill would gut ICAC. On Friday, after the bill was already passed, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens gave his view on the bill to parliament. On Monday, former ICAC Bruce Lander gave his unflattering view of the bill.

It looks like MPs were so keen to force this bill through, it didn’t really matter what anyone else thought. What would have been the harm in adjourning the debate for a few weeks, a few months, just so all factors could be properly considered?

Or even bring in an outside voice such as a retired judge to independently examine the successes and failures of the ICAC and to provide an opinion on whether all the bill’s amendments were necessary.

This has been a disgraceful performance from Liberal, Labor, the Greens, SA Best and the crossbenchers.