By the Working Life Team
Thursday, 03 March 2016
A union-backed campaign pushing for an independent national corruption watchdog is gaining momentum.
Labor is keen to support the proposal from the Australian Council for Trade Unions to set up a new federal watchdog to investigate corruption in politics, business, unions, sport and other areas of public life.
“I understand where the unions are coming from,” Opposition leader Bill Shorten said.
Now leading journalist Quentin Dempster has weighed in on the topic.
“It will be a big challenge for the national ALP and Liberal/National parties to embrace a federal corruption commission as policy,” he told Working Life.
The ACTU’s proposal for a national corruption commission comes in the wake of recognition that public mistrust of the government, political parties, big corporations and sections of the non-government sector is at an all-time high.
“Whether it be allegations of corruption in the Commonwealth Bank or the NSW Liberal Party, which resulted in 10 MPs resigning from the party, or in our sports bodies, corruption seems to be everywhere,” ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver said recently.
The corruption commission should hold in camera and public hearings, Mr Dempster maintained.
“That in itself should help to change a culture ‘conducive to corruption’. And if serious or systemic corruption is exposed then we need a special prosecutor to bring procedurally fair criminal charges.”
The corruption commission must be the investigator, not the judge and jury destroying reputations, Mr Dempster said.
“This is what happened in Queensland after Fitzgerald exposed political and police corruption involving the then Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Police Commissioner Sir Terence Lewis.”
The men were not declared corrupt, even though the inquiry published the details of their receipt of cash in bags.
But the Queensland government appointed a special prosecutor who went on to formulate criminal charges.
“The nasty thing about corruption is .. it is done in secret and you need very clever forensic investigators, accountants, meta data and IT specialists to uncover it,” Mr Dempster said.
Australia has a good reputation on corruption by world standards but given poor Commonwealth controls we need to do much more to minimise the obvious risks, he said.
And in a recent article, he told The Saturday Paper: “The case for a federal ICAC is compelling. With highly skilled forensic accountants, metadata analysts and IT specialists; phone tap, covert surveillance and search warrant powers to gather evidence; and the power to compel attendance at preliminary in-camera interrogation, a federal commission against corruption could start to correct the myth that there is little or no corruption at the Commonwealth level,”
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/02/19/the-case-federal-icac/14558429172911
And Mr Shorten said the commission must be independent — not hijacked by vested interests determined to launch a “wholesale attack on everything to do with unions”.
Mr Oliver agrees: “The politicisation of public institutions such as the royal commission into trade unions only serves to reinforce this public sentiment. Partly because it highlighted a small number of individuals who have done the wrong thing, but equally because of the way the commission was used by the federal government to pursue its own political agenda.”
Thursday, 03 March 2016
A union-backed campaign pushing for an independent national corruption watchdog is gaining momentum.
Labor is keen to support the proposal from the Australian Council for Trade Unions to set up a new federal watchdog to investigate corruption in politics, business, unions, sport and other areas of public life.
“I understand where the unions are coming from,” Opposition leader Bill Shorten said.
Now leading journalist Quentin Dempster has weighed in on the topic.
“It will be a big challenge for the national ALP and Liberal/National parties to embrace a federal corruption commission as policy,” he told Working Life.
The ACTU’s proposal for a national corruption commission comes in the wake of recognition that public mistrust of the government, political parties, big corporations and sections of the non-government sector is at an all-time high.
“Whether it be allegations of corruption in the Commonwealth Bank or the NSW Liberal Party, which resulted in 10 MPs resigning from the party, or in our sports bodies, corruption seems to be everywhere,” ACTU Secretary Dave Oliver said recently.
The corruption commission should hold in camera and public hearings, Mr Dempster maintained.
“That in itself should help to change a culture ‘conducive to corruption’. And if serious or systemic corruption is exposed then we need a special prosecutor to bring procedurally fair criminal charges.”
The corruption commission must be the investigator, not the judge and jury destroying reputations, Mr Dempster said.
“This is what happened in Queensland after Fitzgerald exposed political and police corruption involving the then Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and Police Commissioner Sir Terence Lewis.”
The men were not declared corrupt, even though the inquiry published the details of their receipt of cash in bags.
But the Queensland government appointed a special prosecutor who went on to formulate criminal charges.
“The nasty thing about corruption is .. it is done in secret and you need very clever forensic investigators, accountants, meta data and IT specialists to uncover it,” Mr Dempster said.
Australia has a good reputation on corruption by world standards but given poor Commonwealth controls we need to do much more to minimise the obvious risks, he said.
And in a recent article, he told The Saturday Paper: “The case for a federal ICAC is compelling. With highly skilled forensic accountants, metadata analysts and IT specialists; phone tap, covert surveillance and search warrant powers to gather evidence; and the power to compel attendance at preliminary in-camera interrogation, a federal commission against corruption could start to correct the myth that there is little or no corruption at the Commonwealth level,”
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/02/19/the-case-federal-icac/14558429172911
And Mr Shorten said the commission must be independent — not hijacked by vested interests determined to launch a “wholesale attack on everything to do with unions”.
Mr Oliver agrees: “The politicisation of public institutions such as the royal commission into trade unions only serves to reinforce this public sentiment. Partly because it highlighted a small number of individuals who have done the wrong thing, but equally because of the way the commission was used by the federal government to pursue its own political agenda.”
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