Who will watch national anti-corruption watchdog?

Australia’s legal system, which has served the nation well, evolved through the centuries, protecting important features such as procedural fairness and the presumption of innocence. On Tuesday the Albanese government took a step towards establishing a parallel justice system when Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus unveiled some details of its proposed national anti-corruption commission. On the face of it, the NACC will be manna from heaven for those with political axes to grind, seeking opportunities to embarrass their foes. The NACC would be able to investigate third parties such as unions, businesses and lobbyists, Mr Dreyfus said. It would be empowered to scrutinise the allocation of federal government funds in instances that raised concerns about serious or systemic corruption to expose the worst cases of “pork barrelling”.

Politicians are elected to decide how to spend taxpayers’ money to fund programs. If voters don’t approve they kick them out. When there is no hint of corruption, it should not be up to an impertinent ICAC commissioner to pass judgment on politics, as base as it can be.

In“exceptional circumstances and where it is in the public interest to do so”, Mr Dreyfus said, the new body would hold public hearings. He did not specify what those “exceptional circumstances” might be. But a private hearing might take place, he said, if a matter was before a current or projected criminal trial or involved national security information. Even that is not enough for the Greens, teals and some crossbenchers. On Monday West Australian independent teal MP Kate Chaney said “the public want public hearings whenever it’s in the public interest”. Sometimes it is not.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption model, which has a dastardly record of destroying the careers of innocent people, is a good example. As Rule of Law Institute of Australia vice-president Chris Merritt writes, it appears that the NACC will incorporate some of the most troubling aspects of its NSW counterpart. Experience has shown that ICAC’s public hearings have many of the characteristics of show trials, replaying private conversations taped during secret investigations, when too often the hearings do not lead to charges of wrongdoing but to needless humiliation for those involved. NSW Liberal premier Barry O’Farrell resigned in 2014 over an undeclared gift of a $3000 bottle of wine and Nick Greiner, ICAC’s founder, quit as premier in 1992 after offering Liberal turned independent MP Terry Metherell an executive position in the Environmental Protection Authority. ICAC’s finding against Mr Greiner was overturned by the courts and Mr O’Farrell was never charged with anything.

On Monday, South Australian King’s Counsels Michael Abbott, Marie Shaw and David Edwardson wrote that without adequate safeguards, corruption commissions had the capacity to operate as a star chamber and to have consequences that were significant and irreparable. “In our experience, the process and stigma of being a person who has appeared before a corruption commission (should that appearance be made public) becomes a very severe punishment,” they argued in The Australian. “Some commissions outside SA hold public hearings that result in public humiliation and the destruction of reputations. The processes invoked by corruption commissions bear no relationship to the fair processes a court must apply.”

A federal anti-corruption watchdog was a big issue at the election and the government is honouring its promise to establish one. Such agencies are not courts yet wield immense power, former ACT integrity commissioner Dennis Cowdroy KC warned last year. Allowing them to run rampant, without sufficient accountability, can make for rough justice. Mr Dreyfus must guard against that possibility with the NACC.