Page 44 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2019

DEFENCE BUSINESS
VIEW FROM CANBERRA
Federal anticorruption
AND given the enormous sums involved in defence, some time down the track in the fullness of time, that will surely involve claims of misconduct by defence officials and companies.
By global standards Australia is remark- ably free of corruption. Transparency Inter- national (TI) ranks us 13 out of 180 coun- tries surveyed and we aren’t in the same galaxy as unfortunates such as Afghanistan (172) and Somalia (180).
However, Australia has slipped – in 2014 TI ranked Australia at 11 - so there may be something in claims that we are heading down a slippery slope.
Both sides of politics have promised to create a federal anti-corruption body.
Labor’s will be a brand new organisation called the National Integrity Commission. The Coalition’s organisation will be called the Commonwealth Integrity Commission.
For what it’s worth, your correspondent favours the model proposed by Labor, as fairly close to a body with about which he once reported, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
The coalition never wanted a federal or- ganisation – it branded this a fringe issue – and appears to have been dragged kicking and screaming to the party.
The key element of corruption is that both sides commit offences – the official who has pocketed some cash or who has been shouted a free holiday, and the other party who has achieved a service or facility that had been denied or delayed.
It’s not like bank robbery where one side
body on the cards
A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT | CANBERRA
Whoever wins (or has won) the federal election, Australia is set to get a federal anti-corruption commission to root out corrupt conduct wherever it’s to be found.
clearly loses. At its worst, corruption in- fuses and corrupts daily life, where even the most benign interaction with officialdom involves cash changing hands.
This can be a bit of a novelty for western- ers experiencing it for the first time, along the lines of “heck I had to slip the official $10 or I would have been waiting for hours.”
For an Afghan farmer, a shaken down at a succession of police checkpoints on the way into town, this is a different matter.
In her excellent book Thieves of State, journalist and aid worker Sarah Chayes observes that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs bent solely on their own enrichment. And that drives popula- tions to extremes. To that Afghan farmer, the Taliban starts to look more appealing.
But back to Australia. Uncovering cor- ruption requires an independent organisa- tion able to set its own agenda, with special powers to tap phones, seize documents, and to subpoena witnesses and compel them to answer questions.
Traditionally that’s been the domain of a Roy- al Commission, called by a state or federal govern- ment to deal with a par- ticular topic in a defined timeframe. State anti- corruption bodies such as ICAC have been de- scribed as standing Royal Commissions, which is pretty much what Labor has in mind for its NIC.
The Coalition’s pro- posed body appears to have numerous flaws. It can only launch an inqui-
ry if there’s reasonable suspicion a criminal offence has been committed. In that case why not just go straight to the Australian Federal Police?
It can’t hold public inquiries or accept public tipoffs. So how would other affect- ed parties know to come forward and why would they bother? Politicians and senior of- ficials would be exempt from its gaze. How well would that withstand the pub test?
Clearly this has nil prospects of getting up. It would be torn apart in the Senate and either rejected entirely or substantially amended.
However, the government did show some confidence in their future prospects, with the budget providing $104.5 million to fund their new body for four years.
Labor is tipped to win the election and they have promised to legislate for their NIC within a year.
So, either way we get an anti-corruption body, one which should work or one which wouldbeabitofadud.
Your correspondent has touched on this topic previously but any sort of anti-corrup- tion commission is sure to be highly politi- cal, with all sides seeking to refer their op- ponents for investigation, often on the most tenuous of grounds.
What could be more damaging than the headline “Corruption body to investigate MP” even if no investigation ever ensues.
The corruption body will surely end up dealing with hot issues of public policy – how about claims that Australia is helping destroy the planet through coal exports.
For Defence, there’s the 2003 Iraq war and the current hot issue of the left – the sale of EOS remote weapon systems to Sau- di Arabia.
44 | May 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au
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