Megan Latham faces the sack … Government and Labor in NSW agree on a new ICAC with three commissioners … Public hearings at risk … Vetting of appointments by Coalition … Farewell Inspector Dave … Bringing corruption investigations under political control
The Baird government is pressing ahead with amendments to the ICAC Act, despite Labor objections to measures which would see the removal of Commmissioner Megan Latham.
The new legislation is largely based on the findings and recommendations of the Coalition dominated parliamentary committee on ICAC, but with a nasty twist.
The deal with Labor and the Coalition is to kick Inspector Dave Levine’s recommendations for secret hearings and exoneration protocols into the long grass.
The quid pro quo is for a three member commission, a full time commissioner and two part-timers, all retired state or federal judges. Inquiries will be conducted in secret unless a majority of commissioners agree that a hearing should be in public.
Labor will wear the three commissioner model, but not the requirement that Latham reapply for her job, which she would be unlikely to retain.
Shadow Attorney General, Paul Lynch told Justinian:
“It is simply unacceptable for a commissioner to investigate a governing political party and that party then to remove the commissioner.”
Latham has said that appointing part-time commissioners is a waste of money, as two people will be sitting there “twiddling their thumbs”.
Other hard-nosed ICAC watchers say there’s no need to legislate to remove Megan Latham from her job, because all the government needs to do is appoint two Liberal Party lackeys to ride roughshod over her, which means she would surely quit.
The proposed amendments will tighten political control over the way investigations are conducted.
Inspector Dave’s appointment expires on January 31, 2017. He has been demanding more resources and powers, but the parliamentary committee recommends that there be a new Office of Inspectorates, which would consist of a panel of two inspectors, one for oversight of ICAC and the other for the new Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, which is meant to keep an eye of the coppers and the Crime Commission.
The parliamentary committee also recommended against increased judicial review of ICAC findings. The corruption commission does not make judicial findings, but executive decisions on the balance of probabilities. An acquittal on charges brought by the DPP does not mean that the accused has been acquitted of corruption – something that hacks at The Australian have had difficulty grasping.
We used to hear quite about about “exculpatory evidence” from scribblers at The National Rupert. Legal affairs expert Chris Merritt and reporter Sharri Markson were quite taken with the idea that ICAC had hidden exculpatory evidence, which if made available would have seen Senator Arfur Sinodinos and former NSW police minister Mike Gallacher home and hosed.
Arfur had been peddling some advice from the NSW Crown Solicitor he claimed cleared him of dodgy fundraising for the Libs. Not only did the advice relate to a different set of circumstances, but the NSW Electoral Commission, under chairman Keith Mason, blocked $4.4 million in public funding because the Liberal Party had not disclosed the identity of those who had donated anonymously to the Free Enterprise Foundation.
Mason pointed to evidence from Liberal Party officials to ICAC, “of the involvement of other senior party officials constituting the Party’s Finance Committee, including Mr Sinodinos the Finance Director/Treasurer, Mr Webster and others (ICAC transcript reference 7279T) in the arrangements touching the Foundation”.
Gallacher’s magic “exculpatory” evidence disappeared after ICAC found in Operation Spicer, released in August, that the former minister was an unreliable witness and “acted with the intention of evading laws” on disclosure of political donations and the prohibition of money coming from property developers.
Only days earlier Maestro Merritt had predicted Gallacher would be exonerated, “which will increase pressure on Premier Mike Baird to restore Mr Gallacher’s standing within the Liberal Party”.
Baird promptly announced that Mike Gallacher would not be welcome back into the parliamentary Liberal Party.
Bravo Maestro.