THE Baillieu government has been accused of shrouding its much-vaunted anti-corruption commission in excessive secrecy after suppressing a key expert report advising the Coalition on the body's most controversial aspects. Last year the government asked a panel of four experts, headed by former Court of Appeal judge Stephen Charles, QC, to consult lawyers, judges, academics, police, the journalists' union and public service representatives about the powers and scope of Victoria's first anti-corruption watchdog.
Setting up the watchdog was one of Premier Ted Baillieu's core election promises.
The government has confirmed to The Age the report will never be made public, citing cabinet confidentiality.
The report provides options to the government on 41 issues such as whether the commission should cover government contractors, and rules governing the seizure of sensitive documents and entering premises.
The report also covers whether hearings should be private or public, coercive questioning, the legal rights of those who appear before the commission, its oversight and whether staff should carry weapons.
The Accountability Round Table, a national group of academics, lawyers, and others dedicated to enhancing ministerial responsibility, has called on Mr Baillieu to release the report. The group says Victorians should know the advice informing the legislation that has been introduced to set up the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC). The second of the IBAC bills is likely to be debated in the state upper house this week.
In an article in The Saturday Age, some of Australia's top anti-corruption and accountability experts - including Douglas Meagher, QC, one of two key advisers to the government on the commission - raised concerns about the body's narrow scope and warned the wording of the second bill may lead to legal challenges for the new commission.
The commission is due to start operating in the middle of this year with a four-year budget of $170 million. Mr Meagher said the government ''would be well advised to save its money and abandon the project''.
Accountability Round Table spokesman and emeritus professor David Yencken said: ''The secrecy shrouding every aspect of the consultation carried out by the government is a matter of great concern.
''These are very important bills. Many distinguished lawyers and well-qualified groups have pointed out deficiencies in the drafting of the second bill. The public has a right to know to what degree those who participated in the formal consultation influenced the government's policies and the drafting of the bill for good or ill,'' Professor Yencken said.
James Talia, a spokesman for Andrew McIntosh, the state minister responsible for establishment of an anti-corruption commission, said the report would not be released because it was cabinet-in-confidence and stakeholders who participated in the consultation did so on the basis that their views would remain confidential.
But one of those stakeholders, Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance secretary Louise Connor, told The Age she was contacted last year by the panel to ask if she had any objection to the union's views being made public.
The panel's consultation process was secret from the beginning. Its 33-page stakeholder consultation paper, obtained by The Age, was marked confidential. Many of those who put their case to the panel - such as the Victorian Bar Council - will not release submissions because of the confidentiality surrounding the process.
The Age has seen a copy of the Bar Council's submission, which argued Supreme Court judges should not come under the commission's purview as the government had promised, and that legal professional privilege - the confidentiality between lawyers and their clients - should be respected by the anti-corruption commission, despite it having little weight in anti-corruption bodies in other states.
Labor's spokeswoman on the anti-corruption commission, Jill Hennessy, accused the Coalition of a cover-up and said there was no credible reason for the report to remain secret.
''The expertise and advice in the report could help clear up the many questions and criticisms of the government's commission,'' Ms Hennessy said. ''The secrecy surrounding the report only taints the formation of a body that's meant to improve public integrity.''
The expert panel was chaired by Mr Charles and included retired judge and former Victorian government solicitor Gordon Lewis, Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation member Gail Owen and former State Services Authority chairman Peter Harmsworth.
The commission will cover 250,000 public sector employees, MPs, judges, police, local government and contractors and is running a year behind schedule.
theage.com.au 12 Mar 2012
Another corrupt so called 'watchdog' working in conjunction with the brotherhood for the multinational corporations together with local (unseen) criminal gangs.
The legal system is all for corporate crime.
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