Quentin Dempster in The Saturday Paper
Join the like-minded such as Transparency International Australia, Accountability Roundtable and others as discussion gets underway about public integrity, anti-corruption measures and related topics in the context of development of Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan.
Lots of room for your thoughts, ideas, suggestions and observations.
Become a member of the Australian Open Government Partnership Network, or tell the Prime Minister's department directly what you think.
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......Important to you?
Resistance to a federal corruption commission is expected to be intense from within the political parties and the Murdoch press because, as in NSW, its very existence would confront Australia’s corruptible and influence-peddling political and commercial cultures.
Examples of corruption will be fobbed off as “just a few bad apples”. As in NSW, such an investigative body will be likened to a “star chamber” or a Russian show trial. But the need and the benefits are manifest.....
The NSW ICAC, with a budget of $25 million, assesses an annual state public-sector budget of $70 billion. With the Commonwealth’s annual expenditure now running at $434 billion, the case for an adequately funded countermeasure for a culture vulnerable to corruption would seem to be self-evident.
Join the like-minded such as Transparency International Australia, Accountability Roundtable and others as discussion gets underway about public integrity, anti-corruption measures and related topics in the context of development of Australia's Open Government Partnership National Action Plan.
Lots of room for your thoughts, ideas, suggestions and observations.
Become a member of the Australian Open Government Partnership Network, or tell the Prime Minister's department directly what you think.
A federal ICAC style body is certainly needed.
ReplyDeleteAny claim of corruption is simply denied by a department then it bounces around a myriad of toothless bodies like the ANAO, Ombudsman with little hope of resolution yet alone changing the way our government conducts its business.
Bring it on I say!
This is hard for people to understand when they've never seen what it looks like, but it's important to understand but the reason you're now hearing about dubious conduct in ICAC is because there's quite a stack more. A heads-up, when it eventually comes out, you will probably be shocked about the extent and nature of corruption surrounding one particular inquiry. It's no one of the spectacular ones either, which routinely promise big and deliver fuck all. ICAC has a bootfull of deceptions, strategies, contingencies and emergency leaks to ensure their narrative is in the public domain and NSW taxpayers are none the wiser. OK - it's the RYde ICAC matter... the first hint that something's been concocted is that the councillor targets are those who opposed a controversial development not trying to impose it. The whole ICAC inquiry is underpinned by the fictitious disclosure of its former GM which had the effect of protecting him and ultimately costing ratepayers $500,000. All that was needed was a medioocre story because the bar set in terms of criteria doesn't include the referral being true. It's a rort that will cost the community big bucks until someone does the right thing. Anyway,, will provide more detail soon
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