Disclosure concerns over former ICAC boss Ken Fleming
The NT’s former ICAC boss sent out non-disclosure notices the same time he allegedly authorised one of his high-ranking staff to reveal ‘insider information’.
Northern Territory
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UPDATE JAN 10: THE NT’s former Independent Commissioner Against Corruption sent out non-disclosure notices the same time he allegedly authorised his deputy chief executive to reveal insider information surrounding an inquiry into the controversial $12m Darwin Turf Club (DTC) grandstand grant.
Then commissioner Ken Fleming QC allegedly issued the warning the same time his deputy chief executive Matthew Grant shared insider information from the DTC report with an executive at the NT News.
Four days before the DTC report was formally released, Mr Fleming sent a letter to former DTC chairman Brett Dixon’s lawyer Matthew Selley saying he was “concerned for the security of the information” in the looming report.
The June 21 letter was sent to Mr Selley after he wrote to Mr Fleming over concerns that confidential information in the ICAC’s possession was being illegally leaked into the public arena.
“Given the number of people who necessarily had access to the draft report, I was concerned for the security of the information,” Mr Fleming wrote. “I ensured that each and every relevant person received a notice pursuant to section 147 of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Act 2017.”
It is an offence under the ICAC Act to breach a section 147 notice by unlawfully disclosing information, with the offenders potentially facing a prison term of up to two years.
In the letter, Mr Fleming denied any information had been leaked from his staff.
“From my investigations I can say that that (sic) no material has been provided … from this office,” he wrote.
It has now been revealed that around the same time, Mr Grant contacted NT News general manager Greg Thomson by phone and email, revealing some of the contents of the report, including a misleading and incomplete version of a text message the ICAC had in its possession for almost a year.
Mr Grant disclosed the contents of the incomplete text message from former editor Matt Williams when he was complaining to Mr Thomson about media coverage about the ICAC and its office.
At the time, the NT News had published a series of articles about conflict-of-interest allegations within the ICAC office, as well as articles resulting from a heavily criticised appearance by Mr Fleming in Budget Estimates on June 15.
Mr Grant’s contact with Mr Thomson was not addressed in ICAC Inspector Bruce McClintock’s scathing investigation report but the Inspector stated these allegations were currently subject to an investigation by NT Police. In response to a series of questions by the NT News in relation to his contact with Mr Thomson on June 21 last year, Mr Grant said: “I was acting in my official capacity as D/CEO of the ICAC, with the authority of former Commissioner Fleming.”
Mr McClintock found Mr Fleming made a decision to publish the botched text message during a meeting of ICAC staff the day before the turf club report was made public.
EARLIER: THE text message scandal that has overshadowed the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption’s report into the Darwin Turf Club is not cause to question the investigation’s broader findings, Chief Minister Michael Gunner’s office has said.
Speaking amid the fallout from the saga which saw passages deleted from the report following a scathing review by ICAC Inspector Bruce McClintock SC, a spokesman for Mr Gunner said anyone with concerns “has avenues for appeal”.
“The recent ICAC Inspector’s report demonstrates the process for reviewing the operations and findings of the ICAC works,” he said.
“The ICAC is deliberately independent of government — one of its responsibilities is investigating government. The review process is also deliberately independent.”
“The independent review process is available to anyone who has any specific concerns about past Independent Commissioner Against Corruption findings, operations and decisions.”
The spokesman said a recently completed review into the ICAC Act was “appropriate” and Mr McClintock “did not raise any broader concerns” about the DTC report.
“Anyone who has any concerns about the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption’s conduct during the Turf Club Report, or the findings made in this report, has avenues of appeal,” he said.
EARLIER: FORMER Darwin Turf Club chairman Brett Dixon has called for answers as to how a text message seized from his phone by the Territory’s corruption watchdog was leaked to the media.
Former Independent Commissioner Against Corruption, Ken Fleming QC, used his statutory powers to order Mr Dixon to hand over the text message from former NT News editor, Matt Williams, as part of his investigation into the DTC last year.
The text was subsequently published in Mr Fleming’s report but has now been removed following a scathing assessment of the process by ICAC Inspector, Bruce McClintock SC.
In response, Mr Dixon questioned how the text message came to be published by the NT Independent website and on the Facebook page of its publisher, Owen Pike.
“The problem is that what those two media outlets published was not the complete text — it was an exact replica of the incomplete text the ICAC extracted from my phone when they used their extraordinary powers to compel me to produce it”, he said.
“Now we know from the Inspector’s report that the only possible source of the incomplete text message quoted by these media outlets was the ICAC.”
Mr Dixon said it was “difficult to imagine a more serious matter than an ICAC officer leaking evidence obtained by ICAC using its coercive powers”.
“Who in the former ICAC’s office did this? Did they do it on their own initiative or were they directed to do it and, if so, by whom?” he said.
“Why did they do it? What was the relationship between this ICAC officer and the media outlets concerned and what other evidence or information was shared with them?”
Mr Dixon also said the revelation that ICAC deputy chief executive Matthew Grant contacted NT News general manager Greg Thomson about the text message “with the authority of former Commissioner Fleming” was “concerning”.
“The idea that an ICAC Commissioner would direct his senior staff to misuse evidence to threaten a media outlet is most concerning and, if true, reveals an ‘ends justifies the means’ attitude which is fundamentally inconsistent with the purpose and functions of that office,” he said.
“Parliaments do not establish organisations such as this and give them such extraordinary powers in the expectation that such powers will be abused.”
Mr Dixon said the saga called into question the integrity of the DTC investigation which resulted in adverse findings being made against him.
“Given the findings of the Inspector and that it now appears the former ICAC’s office misused evidence to threaten a media outlet and later leaked that same evidence to other media outlets, how can anyone now have confidence in the integrity of the investigation conducted by the former ICAC and that any of the findings expressed in the report are fair and reasonable?”, he said.
“I’ll have my fight in the Supreme Court in due course to quash the findings against me but a large number of other good people, especially the volunteer members of the previous Darwin Turf Club Board, are victims of what is being exposed to have been a flawed and demonstrably unfair process.”
A NT Police spokeswoman said there was currently no update on its ongoing investigation into the alleged leak, dubbed Operation Hundt.
“NT Police are investigating a historical matter involving the Office of the ICAC,” she said.
“As this investigation is ongoing no further detail will be provided.”
EARLIER: THE deputy chief executive of ICAC, Matthew Grant, may have breached the ICAC Act when he disclosed insider information while complaining about media coverage four days before the Darwin Turf Club (DTC) grandstand report was released, it can be revealed.
News Corp Australia’s complaint to ICAC Inspector Bruce McClintock SC revealed a “senior officer” at ICAC contacted NT News general manager Greg Thomson by phone and email on Monday, June 21 last year.
The NT News can reveal the senior officer was Mr Grant, who remains employed in his current position.
The complaint, which was annexed to Mr McClintock’s scathing investigation report released on Wednesday, said Mr Grant stated in one email to Mr Thomson that “the level of reporting on a government agency including front pages seems incredibly high”.
The NT News had published a series of articles about conflict-of-interest allegations within the ICAC office, as well as articles resulting from a heavily-criticised appearance by former commissioner Ken Fleming QC in Budget Estimates on June 15.
During the phone and email exchanges, Mr Grant revealed to Mr Thomson the contents of an incomplete and misleading text message from former NT News editor Matt Williams.
The ICAC office held the botched text message in its possession for nearly a year.
Mr McClintock subsequently found ICAC investigators had incorrectly harvested the message from the phone of former DTC chairman Brett Dixon.
Mr Grant’s contact with Mr Thomson was not addressed in Mr McClintock’s investigation report but the Inspector stated these allegations were currently subject to an investigation by NT Police.
The complaint, authored by News Corp Australia’s national editorial counsel Michael Cameron, states Mr Grant emailed Mr Thomson at 1.55pm on Monday, June 21, 2021.
In that email, Mr Grant stated: “Your editor has a personal and professional reputation with actors central to the ICAC investigation and their industry. Some time ago your editor communicated in writing with a person who is central to the investigation, when they were receiving negative media coverage and there was talk of reporting the matter to ICAC. Amongst other things the editor said, ‘will do my absolute best to put a stop to this’ and ‘you can count on us to deliver plenty of positivity when the ((redacted)) opens’ and ‘the NT News, especially since I’ve been in charge has been a big supporter’.
A similar passage was made public in ICAC’s turf club report four days later, which erroneously quoted the incomplete and misleading text message.
Mr McClintock found Mr Fleming decided to publish the erroneous text message in the grandstand report on June 24 last year — the day before it was made public.
He also found Mr Fleming made that decision without seeking legal advice.
That passage, and other references to the October 2019 text message, have now been deleted from the original DTC grandstand statement on the ICAC website after Mr McClintock found they should never have been published.
Despite Mr Grant directly contacting Mr Thomson, Mr McClintock found no one at ICAC contacted Mr Williams prior to the grandstand report being made public.
Mr McClintock’s report found Mr Fleming breached the ICAC Act by denying Mr Williams natural justice.
When Mr Grant contacted Mr Thomson, Mr Williams had already finished as NT News editor after being promoted to a senior national editor’s role interstate.
In his complaint, Mr Cameron wrote: “I am advised that (Mr Grant) indicated that (Mr Fleming) held the belief that the NT News coverage of the grandstand matter was being influenced by Mr Williams’ relationship with (Mr Dixon) – a serious defamatory imputation for which he provided no evidence to support.”
The complaint stated Mr Thomson was given the impression that Mr Grant’s disclosure of the incomplete and misleading text message was a “retaliatory act by the ICAC over the NT News’ reporting of unrelated matters concerning the ICAC”.
In the complaint, Mr Cameron noted that the “unauthorised disclosures made by ICAC employees to external persons prior amounts to a breach of the non-disclosure provisions of the Act”.
Mr Cameron alleged on behalf of News Corp: “It is apparent that (Mr Williams) was dragged into the controversy by the ICAC as some form of payback for the newspaper doing what newspapers are supposed to do: that is, hold the powerful to account.”
In a statement to the NT News on Friday, Mr Grant said: “I was acting in my official capacity as D/CEO of the ICAC, with the authority of former Commissioner Fleming.”
Mr Grant is currently on secondment with NT Police.
The ICAC website states Mr Grant is “responsible for leading the operations of the Office of the ICAC including, investigations, preventions and the business service functions.”
He was a former executive member of the Western Australia Crime and Corruption Commission and a former Australian Federal Police officer.
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