Gladys Berejiklian’s chance to remedy ICAC injustices

Gladys Berejiklian has inherited an awful mess from Mike Baird, her predecessor as NSW premier.

One of those who continues to suffer from ICAC’s smear is Anthony Roberts, the new Planning Minister. Picture: James Croucher

Gladys Berejiklian has inherited an awful mess from Mike Baird, her predecessor as NSW premier. But if she moves quickly, she could make a name as the state’s greatest corruption buster.

The corruption Berejiklian needs to tackle is insidious. It is widely known by the term “noble-cause corruption” — a reference to law enforcement officers who ignore the law in order to achieve what they consider to be a desirable outcome.

It is now hard to avoid the conclusion that noble-cause corruption pervades an agency that sometimes sees itself as above the police: the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Any other agency with ICAC’s record for unlawful conduct would have been demolished. But under Baird, an indulgent government introduced retrospective legislation to validate outrageous conduct that would otherwise have been unlawful.

ICAC had exceeded its jurisdiction because it failed to understand a statute. Unfortunately for Berejiklian, it seems to have done it again. This time, there should be no indulgence and no retrospective validation.

If legal advice from the Crown Solicitor’s office is right, Berejik­lian needs to accept that ICAC has botched its inquiry into electoral funding that was known as Operation Spicer.

She has just one honourable course: the report from Operation Spicer needs to be withdrawn and reissued after the legal errors have been corrected and accompanied by apologies to those who have been unjustly smeared.

The Crown Solicitor’s advice has effectively vindicated two former politicians, Chris Spence and Darren Webber, who lost their ­careers and reputations because of ICAC’s failure to understand the electoral funding law.

But the natural consequence of the Crown Solicitor’s advice is that others have also been unjustly smeared — including former police minister Mike Gallacher. This man moved to the cross bench and vowed to clear his name after ICAC accused him of corruption during Spicer’s public hearings.

The agency never substantiated that claim yet Gallacher remained unwanted in Baird’s Liberal Party room.

The Crown Solicitor’s advice gives Berejiklian an opportunity to remedy that injustice. If the Spicer report is reissued in a way that reflects legal reality it will end the continuing smear of those who, when judged by the law of NSW, have done nothing wrong.

One of those who continues to suffer from ICAC’s smear is Anthony Roberts, Berejiklian’s new Planning Minister. His elevation was accompanied by a report in Sydney’s main local newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, that said he had been promoted “despite being named in the ICAC illegal donations inquiry — dubbed Operation Spicer — as having enjoyed a holiday on a developer’s yacht in the Whitsundays ... owned by Nabil Gazal senior, the head of Gazcorp”.

There are a few points to be made about this: Roberts was never called to give evidence to ICAC and his name appears nowhere in the Spicer report. Like Gallacher, Spence and Webber, he was smeared by an ill-disciplined agency that was unable to substantiate what was said.

There is also no evidence, according to the Crown Solicitor, that Gazcorp is a property developer that would have been prevented from making political donations — a point that kills part of ICAC’s narrative from Spicer’s hearings.

ICAC, not the Telegraph, is responsible for this baseless innuendo. It allowed Roberts to be smeared, but failed to set the record straight — which should be part of a reissued Spicer report.

Roberts was understandably annoyed to be linked with ICAC’s nonsense. “It is disappointing for this matter to be brought up again as it has absolutely no substance whatsoever. I was not called to give evidence at the hearing,” Roberts said.

“When this was raised during the ICAC hearing I released a statement confirming I paid my own airfares and costs associated with my attendance and that I did not need to make a disclosure on my pecuniary interests register.

“This was confirmed by the Clerk of the NSW Legislative Assembly who advised she did not believe there was a requirement to make a disclosure.”

This does not compare to the injustice done to Spence. The thing that angers him most is not the loss of his career, but the raid on his home — conducted at 8.30am by five ICAC officers wearing SWAT vests — when the only people at home were his wife and three-month old baby.