Attorney-General open-minded about federal ICAC

Bill Shorten’s promise to establish a federal ICAC gave Christian Porter a chance to explain where he stands on the issue.

Bill Shorten’s promise this week to establish a federal ICAC did have some benefits. It provided the perfect opportunity for Christian Porter to explain where he stands on the issue.

During his interview with The Australian, the new Attorney-General made it clear that the government has not closed its mind to the possibility of consolidating the existing federal integrity agencies to improve efficiency.

But he does not consider this to be an urgent matter because, like Shorten, he believes the federal public sector is not afflicted by a corruption problem. And the existing integrity agencies, in his view, operate in a robust manner.

If the government were to move on this front, Porter’s remarks indicate he has already learned some of the painful lessons that have emerged at a state level.

He was aware public hearings by state anti-corruption agencies “have not always proved to be giving results that are absolutely optimal”. He was also aware that “at a state level certain people have had their rights quite egregiously infringed”.

“That is not to say there haven’t been merits and desirable outcomes from the operations of some of those bodies at a state level but equally there have been some things that we would absolutely want to avoid.”

The Attorney-General did not identify where those rights infringements had taken place, but Porter — who is a former academic, senior prosecutor and attorney-general of Western Australia — has an insider’s perspective on the legal sector.

It also needs to be kept in mind that soon after he was sworn in, he inherited responsibility for defending the NSW commission, which is the subject of a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva.

Porter believes the fundamental problem with Shorten’s promise is that nobody knows exactly what the Opposition Leader has in mind.

“I think the debate needs to be had before you make the determination to make the body,” he said.

“At the moment, we have a (Labor) commitment to a new body without any commitment to the detail of what it is that Mr Shorten is committed to, and that is just a cart before the horse process.”

He believed the Opposition Leader needs to provide some answers on whether, like ICAC in NSW, he wants to have a federal agency that is free to discard the rules of evidence, restrict the role of defence counsel and publish “findings” before any accusations are tested in court.