Vikki Campion: Labor’s plan for an anti-corruption body the worst of all worlds

An anti-corruption body is there to uncover corruption, not undertake the equivalent of trash-television gotcha moments best left for gossip columns, but that is Labor’s plan, writes Vikki Campion.

Whichever way you vote at this year’s federal election, Australia is promised a federal anti-corruption agency.

If we get it right, you have an anti-corruption body to deal with public officials who engage in hard-to-detect and serious corruption, offering the protections of the criminal justice system for the accused and witnesses.

Get it wrong, and Labor, the party of jailed corrupters in NSW, whose Victorian branch is accused of rigging an election, and whose Queensland division is mired with integrity scandals, will write the rules.

Labor’s proposed model risks a mishmash of the worst of what we already have in NSW and Queensland – a Jerry Springer-like expose, where every witness can be treated like a criminal, offices turned over without search warrants, phones tapped in fishing expeditions, investigators pressured to “tone down” reports, suppressed findings, wiped laptops and the only winners being the lawyers.

Labor’s plan will be akin to a Jerry Springer TV show, writes Vikki Campion Picture: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

While Labor’s policy is light on detail, its answer for a federal ICAC appears to be a legally-led Frankenstein combination of what is wrong with the Queensland and NSW experiments.

It comes with public hearings, a titillating idea for those who believe serious corruption and crime is best handled like an episode of Married At First Sight, live-streaming butchering accusations for maximum entertainment and running roughshod over the principles of natural justice and fairness.

An investigation where witnesses are legally compelled to answer questions in a public arena sees accusations fly first, rather than their veracity being tested before being aired or examined by a judicial system with an adverse court finding.

A Labor government will nominate its Commissioners, and the body will be overseen by a Joint Standing Committee of parliament, “empowered to require the Commission to provide information about its work”, which in itself brings into question the complete independence of such a body if it were ultimately answering to the same public servants it was created to investigate.

Tony Fitzgerald, who has clear Labor connections linked to the left-leaning Australia Institute, who has advocated not voting for the LNP, is an example of the latest Labor appointment in Queensland, hired to review the same Crime and Corruption Commission structure he helped create. It’s not a good look.

Labor use him as their integrity political stunt man, wheeled out when they know a Craig Thompson figure won’t do. How can you have any faith he or Sam Dastyari won’t be the national commissioner at a Labor level? A Green-Labor Coalition would likely consider Kooyong-challenger Julian Burnside as a potential recruit for the position.  

Gladys Berejiklian appearing at ICAC in 2021.

With the power to investigate historical allegations, Labor’s proposal risks being used to witch-hunt targets from administrations before it was established, and with an investigative standard so low that instead of tackling corruption, it attracts vexatious and frivolous complaints. This leaves us with what we already have in Queensland – a Crime and Corruption Commission that looks in all the wrong areas and opens it up to more political interference.

So far we have suppression of a misconduct report into Queensland Transport Minister Mark Bailey’s mangocube emails, an investigation into whether senior public servants in 2021 took a laptop from Integrity Commissioner Nikola Stepanov’s office and deleted its contents and misconduct allegations made by former state archivist Mike Summerell who alleges interference in his role and his reports, which potentially misled the Queensland parliament. Like the NSW model, federal Labor’s answer to ICAC can make a finding of corrupt conduct that bears no criminal penalty.

A prime example in NSW was ICAC found SES Commissioner Murray Kear to have corruptly sacked his deputy, which he took to court and was exonerated. Although he was cleared of corruption in the criminal system, he has no recourse under ICAC and he never got his job back. Under Labor’s model, if the Australian Federal Police or Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions finds no criminal case, Labor targets get no forgiveness.

Mark Dreyfus said an anti-corruption commission established by Labor “will have teeth”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Labor’s model appears to borrow from the worst of Queensland and NSW’s state commissions, hardly to be held up as models for the level of government handling national security to follow.

In a court of law, both sides share their brief of evidence. But when former Premier Gladys Berejiklian walked into ICAC, they had her emails, text messages and phone taps, and she and her legal team would have had no idea.

An anti-corruption body is there to uncover insidious corruption, not undertake the equivalent of trash-television gotcha moments best left for gossip columns and social media.

A commission with a low bar only serves as clickbait for slack journos, which doesn’t serve society well.

One would assume an anti-corruption body is the Adam Bandt-Albanese coalition’s top priority from the parliamentary hours dedicated to it, with more than 80 speeches in 12 months.

Yet, weeks out from the election, it is still surprisingly light on detail.

In a 15-minute speech this week, shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who has enjoyed more job security than nearly any other position holder in the parliament, having had the same job now since 2013, stopped short of an explainer of how his federal ICAC would operate.

He said it would be “powerful, transparent and independent”, repeating his favourite slogan: “An anti-corruption commission with teeth”.

If Labor win, strap yourself in for a Frankenstein reality TV version of ICAC looking to target any opponent with teeth, bolts and no nuts. If the Coalition get in, they need to get serious and implement a proper anti-corruption commission to strengthen our society – not our political parties.