Thread by @VoicesWentworth

Thread 1/24 💡💡💡

Last week, Gladys Berejiklian resigned as Premier of NSW and as the MP for Willoughby following news that the NSW #ICAC will hold an investigation involving her. The public reaction has been strong and has prompted a backlash against the NSW #ICAC.

2/24

Wentworth MP, Dave Sharma tweeted that he would "prefer it if the voting public decided the fate of Premiers".

Barnaby Joyce compared the ICAC to the "Spanish Inquisition”.

Scott Morrison points to her resignation as a reason not to introduce a NSW-style Federal ICAC.

3/24

We thought it might help to get some expert analysis.

So we spoke to His Honour Anthony Whealy QC, Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, former judge of the NSW Supreme Court of NSW Court of Appeal and former NSW ICAC Commissioner for some clarification.

@cpi_aus

4/24

We have summarised the main points below 👇🏽 and you can watch our full discussion here:

@AccRoundTable @cpi_aus @helenhainesindi @zalisteggall @OurDemocracyAU @MakeItABigDeal

5/24

NSW ICAC Process:

👉🏽Last year the NSW ICAC had 2,495 complaints lodged with it each of which has to be scrutinised and subjected to a preliminary investigation

👉🏽 Of all of those complaints, only 9 matters were assessed as requiring further + full investigation last year

6/24

👉🏽This led to 30 private compulsory hearings and then just 3 public hearings

👉🏽 So behind the decision to hold a public hearing, there is a massive amount of work and process in determining whether a matter should be fully investigated

7/24

👉🏽 Even at that point, there are very stringent public interest tests imposed by the legislation to determine whether it is in the public interest to hold a public hearing including: consideration of the nature and magnitude of the alleged conduct….

8/24

….the impact it would have on public confidence and the damage to reputation that might be unfairly caused by holding a public hearing.

9/24

Timing of the Announcement

👉🏽 The investigation surrounding Daryl Maguire has been going on for nearly two years now and it’s well known that interviews have been going on

👉🏽 The pandemic has meant that ICAC has not been able to hold any public hearings

10/24

👉🏽 It is likely that the ICAC’s internal investigations have now completed and all private hearings have taken place so that ICAC is now satisfied that there are some questions that the Premier has to answer.

11/24

👉🏽 Her position as Premier meant the hearing had to be in public.

“I know of no reason to suggest other than that ICAC has done this at the first available opportunity once their investigation has completed and I think that’s the correct thing for them to do.” A Whealy QC

12/24

Whilst it was appropriate for Ms Berejiklian to step aside, (because that’s the standard she herself set for other parliamentarians) there was no requirement through the ICAC’s processes or her to resign.

13/24

Supervision of the ICAC

👉🏽 The activities of ICAC are strictly supervised by an inspector of ICAC appointed by the government of the day - the current inspector of ICAC is Bruce McClintock QC

14/24

👉🏽 The inspector’s job is to scrutinise ICAC activity, receive any complaints and investigate those, write a public report and appear before parliament

👉🏽 There is also a multi-party parliamentary committee and its job is to supervise

15/24

👉🏽 ICAC’s decisions are also subject to Administrative Law Appeals that can be brought to the Supreme Court.

16/24

Federal ICAC

👉🏽 Any justifiable criticisms of the NSW ICAC demonstrated either by a report from the inspector or some other proper form of oversight should be taken into account in the model for a Federal ICAC.

17/24

👉🏽 In creating a Federal model we should learn lessons from other ICACs around Australia, to improve without impairing the effectiveness of the proposed anti-corruption body.

18/24

“We all agree that we don’t want to see reputations damaged unfairly, we don’t want to see politicians hounded for political reasons, we don’t want to see any unfairness in the process but we do want to uncover corruption.” A Whealy QC

19/24

Position of the Government and Wentworth MP Dave Sharma

👉🏽 The PM and the former Attorney General made a commitment to introduce a NIC back in 2018 and again in 2019 prior to the last federal election. But we still don’t have a government bill.

20/24

Anthony Whealy QC recent met with Dave Sharma together with Ben Oquist of the Australia Institute and The Honourable Mary Gausron who is a former judge of the High Court of Australia

@TheAusInstitute

21/24

Sharma said that the Gmt considered that only criminal offences should be investigated by a federal body and the government doesn’t believe that any of their decisions should be investigated by an external body.

22/24

They believe that decisions made by government should be scrutinised by the electorate at election time and only then. And if they don’t like those decisions they can vote accordingly.

23/24

Scrutinising decisions at election time is the worst possible time to do it because the public are not informed of what’s happened, they can’t go behind the decisions, they can’t look carefully at what really has happened in the way that an anti-corruption agency can

24/24

In the recent budget there was $0 for an integrity body.

“They don’t really want to be accountable or to be scrutinised by an independent third party body.” A Whealy QC

@AccRoundTable @OurDemocracyAU @MakeItABigDeal @helenhainesindi @zalisteggall #FederalICACNow