Star chambers corrupt politics

The poor judgment of NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian — or rather its public exposure — has predictably led to demands for a federal anti-corruption body, and without delay. But what we’re watching unfold before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption only strengthens the case for caution and realism. It’s facile to dismiss sceptics of standing anti-corruption bodies as people with something to hide. Serious corruption has to be tackled, obviously, but the very uneven results of ICAC and its other state counterparts should by now have dashed naive expectations of these institutions.

The NSW body has indeed exposed cases of serious corruption, but it has also exceeded its powers, left innocent people with shattered reputations and shown its own poor judgment by its misuse of publicity. In a letter to the editor on Monday, former Federal Court judge Peter R. Graham pointed out that anti-corruption commissions and other such inquisitorial bodies “are star chambers, where safeguards that common law procedures provide for the protection of the liberty of subjects are lacking”. Sometimes, these extraordinary powers are necessary, but there are always serious risks.

In theory, there is bipartisan support for a federal anti-corruption agency. In reality, any political party in government and weathering a scandal such as sports rorts would have found it easier to go along with a motherhood accountability project. Had the Coalition adopted an implacable stance of “anti-anti-corruption agency”, it would have been endlessly assailed as “pro-corruption” by Labor.

But all this was pre-COVID. Maybe with a pandemic crisis, collapsing public finances and a grim strategic outlook, the government will take a tougher, more principled line. Earlier this month, federal Attorney-General Christian Porter dryly remarked there were “more immediate priorities” than rushing out draft legislation for the promised commonwealth integrity commission. Those on the legal left will wail and gnash their teeth. Rumour has it they were already worried because the Coalition had put on the record its wish to avoid the pitfalls and excesses of anti-corruption bodies in the states.

It’s noteworthy that Labor and the Greens are the greatest enthusiasts for the anti-corruption bandwagon. One vice of the standing star chamber is that it usurps normal political conflict if an aggrieved party finds something that can be worked up to look “corrupt”. This weakens democracy, just as confected anti-discrimination complaints, lawfare and constitutional pointscoring take matters out of the hands of elected representatives and entrust them to a legal elite.

A more prosaic objection to a federal anti-corruption body is that boredom might leave it with little to do apart from fighting turf wars with the myriad, well-funded federal agencies fighting everything from espionage through organised crime to tea room larceny in the public service. The commonwealth domain is heavy with dull-as-a-dog policy, unlike state and local governments with their juicy project contracts and land deals (the Badgerys Creek federal land purchase may be the exception that proves the rule). Before adding yet another supra-political agency, why not lift the standard of scrutiny by federal parliamentary committees? And if the legal left really cares about independent media scrutiny, it could give up its illiberal pretence that reporting and commentary it disagrees with ought to be a punishable offence.