Corruption fight should be an open process

After a lot of pussyfooting around, the Federal Government has introduced an integrity commission to protect our mainly government processes from corruption.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: After a degree of doubt and political confusion and a lot of pussyfooting around, the Federal Government has finally been forced to introduce an integrity commission to protect our mainly government processes from corruption.

This is something that has been needed for a very long time.

It is a small start, but I feel that we need to be careful as  the process could be watered down to further protect the reputations of politicians.

The Attorney General is already trying to hide the process from public exposure by saying that all political investigations and court cases will be conducted behind closed doors to protect the reputations of politicians.   

Why do we have a one-sided investigative process that allows the names of average people involved in corruption to be revealed yet protects the politicians from public exposure?

That is not an entirely fair process.

Public accountability should be mandatory for everybody involved in any investigation process.

The whole new process seems to be more about political protection than exposing corruption, but it is a start because corruption has infected many of our political processes.

I accept that we need the process to provide protection for reputations during any investigative process but I also recognise that if they are involved in corruption in any way they should be publicly exposed and shamed.   

Already we have seen judges and lawyers publicly criticising the government's new integrity commission, saying how inadequate it really is.

We should have a corruption fighting body that treats everybody the same under the same rules.

Douglas Young, Silkstone          

Originally published as Corruption fight should be an open process