‘What’s the big secret?’: Calls for national corruption watchdog NACC to open up hearings

The former chief of Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog, IBAC, Robert Redlich, wants reform to ensure the troubled National Anti-Corruption Commission holds corrupt officials to account.

National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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The former head of Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has urged reforms to ensure the National Anti-Corruption Commission holds corrupt officials publicly to account, arguing that “not surprisingly those who advance objections to a public hearing generally do so out of self- interest”.

Robert Redlich, who headed Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission for five years until the end of 2022, told The Australian the current requirement that there must be exceptional circumstances before a public hearing can be held is “an inappropriate limitation on the NACC’s power”.

“Public hearings serve the public good,” said Mr Redlich, a former Victorian Supreme Court and Appeals Court judge. “They expose corruption and make it difficult for persons of interest to misrepresent the gravity of findings.

“They deter others from engaging in corruption, improve the integrity of the public sector and expose the commission to greater accountability to the public.”

Mr Redlich’s comments come as some of Australia’s most senior legal figures and former judges call for changes to force the national anti-corruption watchdog to reveal the names of corrupt officials in the wake of an investigation that kept secret the identity of a corrupt Home Affairs officer.

The NACC has come under fire over its first finding of misconduct against a public official, after commissioner Paul Brereton shielded the identity of a ­senior public servant who had lied and abused her position to get her sister’s fiance a plum government job.

The hearings, like all NACC hearings to date, were held in secret, with the Home Affairs official given the pseudonym of “Joanne Simeson”.

Mr Brereton made clear his view in a speech last year: “Our hearings are meant to be a means of gathering evidence and information, not a show trial from which many of the protections of a criminal trial are absent.”

No “exceptional circumstances” had yet arisen, he said.

The limitation was inserted into the NACC Act at the last minute by the Albanese government with the support of the Coalition, but fiercely opposed by minor parties as encouraging unnecessary secrecy.

Mr Redlich observed that the stand taken by the two parties, who in government might be under scrutiny, “speaks loudly as to why governments seek to severely limit public examinations”.

Robert Redlich. Picture: AAP

There was already an obligation under the NACC legislation to avoid a public hearing or disclose identity “where it would be unfairly prejudicial to the witness’s reputation, safety or well being”, he noted.

“Not surprisingly, those who advance objections to a public hearing generally do so out of self-interest and their reason for objection is obvious,” Mr Redlich said. “Numerous examinations have been held in private because of these restrictions, when the public interest would have been best served by public exposure of misconduct so as to advance integrity in the public sector.”

Mr Brereton described the recent Home Affairs case as “a paradigm example of nepotism” that constituted significant and serious corrupt conduct, but said naming the woman would make others ­involved in the case more identifiable, and she “did not occupy high-profile positions that would ordinarily justify greater public accountability”.

Mr Redlich said given findings of serious corrupt conduct were made in the report, there could be no ongoing risk of unfair prejudice to the witness’s reputation.

“It may therefore be reasonable to assume that the explanation for continued non-disclosure of the witness’s identity lay in the other protective criteria, either because personal safety or wellbeing was at risk.

“But it is important for transparency and accountability that an integrity commission provides a sufficient explanation for matters that are in the public domain so as to prevent speculation or suspicion that will otherwise fill the void.”

Former NSW Supreme Court judge Anthony Whealy said the failure to reveal names of corrupt officials “defeats the idea of what the NACC is about … otherwise it doesn’t act as a deterrent at all.”

If the NACC approach ­continued, there would be “a strong imperative” to repeal the “exceptional circumstances” clause, Mr Whealy said.

Former Queensland Court of Appeal judge Margaret White suggested the NACC legislation could be amended to put greater onus on the commission to identify corrupt officials by reversing the use of the “extraordinary circumstances” test.

“You could say must – must – identify the person who’s been found to be corrupt, unless there are extraordinary ­circumstances not to,” Professor White said.