Well, that escalated quickly. One minute Albo was everybody’s probity hero, the next he’s just another corrupt hack:
Legal and integrity experts have criticised the government’s proposed National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) for having too high a threshold for public hearings, but those who the government will need to pass the legislation were more positive.
The opposition, which warned in advance it would oppose any commission that allowed “show trials”, indicated through back channels on Tuesday it was inclined to support the legislation.
“No doubt we will support it,” said a senior source, although cautioning that there was a process to be followed before the final vote.
The hapless Teals have been outfoxed by the political duopoly:
Greens justice spokesman David Shoebridge said it was “too high a bar and ignores the fact that sunshine is a great disinfectant”, while Ms Chaney responded that “the public want public hearings whenever it’s in the public interest”.
ACT independent senator David Pocock, who like the Greens could have a critical vote to pass the bill through the Senate, said the independent commission should be able to make hearings public if it believed it was in the public interest and “not be constrained to do so in ‘exceptional’ circumstances”.
Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie said the tougher public hearings threshold was news to her and Senate colleague Tammy Tyrrell, and it “caused a raised eyebrow or two”.
Independent MP Zali Steggall said the new test was a “major red flag” and could result in very few public hearings.
In short, it will be an integrity commission operating in secret. George Orwell eat your heart out.
Or, not. Crikey:
While the bill for a federal anti-corruption body won’t be introduced into Parliament until tomorrow, its design principles are becoming clearer, and it seems the government is committed to an effective body.
In response to a question from independent Zoe Daniel yesterday, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the commission would be able to pursue “conduct by any person that could adversely affect the honesty or impartiality of a public official’s conduct”.
And in response to a question from independent Allegra Spender, Dreyfus settled the matter of public hearings: “Public hearings must be available to this commission because the experience of the eight existing state and territory commissions has shown us that in order for an anti-corruption commission such as we proposing to be effective, there must be the possibility of public hearings.”
That’s exactly right — the effectiveness of an anti-corruption body requires public hearings.
In doing so, Dreyfus contradicted Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who had claimed the government had conceded public hearings could amount to “show trials”, a position held only by the Coalition, News Corp and the ranks of the corrupt.
The remaining concern about the federal body is the definition of the conduct that would fall within its jurisdiction: “serious or systemic corruption”. The systemic part is straightforward; “serious” is more complicated.
The NSW ICAC approach has an expansive definition of corrupt conduct that includes adversely affecting the honest or impartial exercise of official functions by any public official, dishonest or partial exercise of official functions, a breach of public trust, or the misuse of information. But that definition is then caveated: it must be conduct that is a criminal offence, a disciplinary offence, conduct that would be reasonable grounds for dismissing a public official, or for ministers and MPs a substantial breach of an applicable code of conduct.
Note terms like “reasonable grounds” and “substantial” — the NSW legislation requires ICAC commissioners to exercise some judgment about what might justify an investigation. It appears the Labor model will rely more heavily on commissioners’ discretion to determine what “serious” might amount to, without limiting it in the way the NSW act does.
The threshold must be set somewhere; allowing the body itself to set the limits might work better than Parliament attempting to prescribe it. The benefit of that approach is that a future Coalition government will have less capacity to narrow the remit of the body by dictating what conduct should be examined.
Lets reserve judgment until we see the detail.
