“I have previously written that the IC should be abolished. Whether that does or does not happen, it is essential for the maintenance of public confidence that Commissioner Michael Adams KC resign immediately,” says legal columnist HUGH SELBY.

The image on the postcard caught my attention. A young woman, well got up in a cleaner’s togs (including a starched cap) was lifting the corner of an expensive carpet in a public state room and sweeping a lot of mixed debris under that carpet.

As an insight into the machinations of power it’s a powerful, apt image, contrasting its recent exercise with the demeaning, but traceable tasks left to the powerless. 

When the curtains are opened and the carpet comes to be lifted (by, for example, a nosy journalist) then there is light upon dark places, however belated.

Reading the revelations by The Australian journalist Janet Albrechtsen of her interactions these past months with the ACT Integrity Commission (IC) brought the image sharply to mind. You can read her article here.

As Albrechtsen points out, she was in much better position than those who might expect to be singled out in an inquiry’s draft or final report: she had the resources – by way of principles, legal acumen and financial – to not just rebut the intended criticisms but to bury them, not under a carpet but in the trash pit where they belong.

That’s our good luck because, thanks to her willingness to reveal what happened, we are now in a good position to assess the contribution that the IC brings to public governance in the ACT.

Here are the basics

Assessing the completeness and value of evidence is a task that we all do from time to time. Whether as parents, teachers, sport coaches, work supervisors etcetera, we must ask ourselves these questions: “Do we have all the evidence?”; “If not, from where can we get the missing bits?”; “When we have bits of evidence, such that it can’t all be true, how do we go about deciding what to accept and what to reject?”

An ad hoc inquiry body, such as the Sofronoff Inquiry, and a standing inquiry body such as the IC are expected to ask those same questions as they gather evidence.

That done they are required to set out in writing their reasoning processes as they evaluate the evidence.

That is what we expect of any decision maker who holds or has held a judicial office. We call it the “transparency of their reasoning”. The lack of such transparency, along with errors found in that reasoning, is what underlies appeal and review processes.

For some decades past it has been a requirement of inquiries that they share with any person likely to be adversely criticised a draft of those criticisms so that a rebuttal or qualification can be offered.

Sofronoff followed that procedure, going so far as to append to his final report that ended Shane Drumgold SC’s career as DPP, the material offered by Drumgold as a response to the criticisms.

How is the decision maker to assess and report upon any person who is not “the subject of inquiry” but who was a witness? The IC was investigating a complaint against Walter Sofronoff KC. He was the subject. Albrechtsen was a witness. She was not the subject.

How the IC lost its way with Albrechtsen

Quoting here from Albrechtsen’s article, the IC’s draft report variously labelled her as having “pre-formed views about Drumgold”, and as, “being a protagonist”, and more. It did that without, when asked by her, providing evidence to back up those labels. Worse than that it claimed justification for its labelling from the reasons handed down by Justice Kaye when he heard and determined Drumgold’s largely unsuccessful action seeking to review Sofronoff’s adverse findings.

Albrechtsen quotes from Justice Kaye’s comments about her reporting of the matters before the Sofronoff inquiry. Those comments were positive, not negative.

There was then the matter of the embargo on publication of the Sofronoff Inquiry report (one such copy given to Albrechtsen, the other to an ABC journalist) and Albrechtsen’s claim at the time, and repeated thereafter, to have been leaked another copy from which she drew the material for her articles.

There is no evidence to contradict her claim. Her claim therefore stands, the more so as there was no evidence to undermine her believability.

By the way, pursuant to its legislation (section 174.a) the IC could have called in aid the ambit of “journalistic privilege” as covered in the ACT’s Evidence Act, section 126K. This protects a journalist’s sources unless there is a stronger, countervailing public interest. Albrechtsen mentions those sections.

I have not seen or heard any report that the IC attempted a public interest balancing exercise during its inquiry; that is, the public interest in forcing her to disclose her source outweighs the journalist privilege to keep that source a secret. Had it done so then I expect the matter would have been taken up by The Australian in our Supreme Court.

Albrechtsen’s efforts to have the draft report corrected were wholly successful. Were it not for her article we, the Canberra funders of the IC, would be blissfully unaware of the “shocker” draft. That the draft ever left the office is a concern. But so too is that the character assassinations of Albrechtsen ever saw the written page in an organisation with the word “integrity” in its name.

There are other points in Albrechtsen’s article (and I urge you to read it) that taken together amply justify her closing paragraph in these terms:

“Our experience with the ACT Integrity Commission is that the behaviour of this body, with its wide-ranging powers, lacks integrity. Its behaviour is far more troubling than anything it has claimed about Sofronoff. It would be a travesty of justice if its… report was not reviewed by a court.”

I agree.

The budget is a key factor in task decisions

The unabated shortcomings of our IC have been covered in earlier CityNews articles. For example: 

• https://citynews.com.au/2025/heres-where-adams-has-got-it-so-wrong-on-sofronoff/
• https://citynews.com.au/2025/heres-why-the-snail-pace-act-integrity-commission-has-to-go/
• https://citynews.com.au/2024/sofronoff-its-time-commissioner-adams-moved-on/ 

Its investigations take too long. Too much is done out of the public eye. The results do not justify the time taken, the expense, or the results. We cannot tell if it has any priorities that govern its approach to complaints made to it.

For example, on what basis did the ill-conducted inquiry into Walter Sofronoff’s conduct in sharing information with Albrechtsen, jump the work queue so that we are still waiting on the report about how and why Manteena did not get the multi-million dollar work on the Campbell school.

There’s a problem that has been clear for decades with bodies – such as the IC – set up to receive complaints about maladministration: the budgeted resources are inadequate for the complaint volume.

The legislation needs to give these bodies the explicit power to decline to investigate because of limited resources. Being able to focus on top priorities is essential.

Just as the number of surgeries that can be performed at a hospital reflects the number of operating spaces, staff numbers and staff skills, so the capacity to investigate alleged corruption reflects the limited resources.

The ACT Integrity Commission Act does not deal with this reality. Section 71 contains the usual list for not investigating. The factors reflect shortcomings in the complainant, or the level of detail provided.

All bodies charged with accepting and responding to complaints should have the power to record information about a complaint, but to decline for limited resource reasons to do anything more unless and until new information comes to light.

For example, a classic complaint against police is that one or more police unlawfully assaulted a complainant. In the absence of filmed footage such cases are usually word against word. 

An inquiry then is a waste of finite resources. However, if details of the alleged assault are properly recorded, and readily found in the database, then a later complaint against the same officer or officers – which reveals that they have a pattern of unlawful assault – should be investigated. Put another way, with patience, the seemingly unconnected evidence from different people, times and places, builds a strong case.

Bodies such as the IC, the Ombudsman, and the Human Rights Commission should be required to set out in their annual reports how they triaged their workload in response to their budget and staff capabilities.

Go, for all our sakes, go

The evaluative errors in the recent Integrity Commission Report that Albrechtsen has set out in her article demonstrate the incapacity of the IC to perform its core functions: to properly investigate and reliably report upon breaches of integrity.

“To err is human” and not one of us is immune. That said, the history of the IC, which costs us a pretty penny, has now added to its litany of delays the fundamental problem of ignoring the basics of how to assess and report upon evidence.

That this should happen when the organisation is headed by a former NSW Supreme Court judge is a cause of bewilderment.

A week ago I reported the response of the Legislative Assembly Speaker  Mark Parton to my questions about how he came to be heard in the Federal Court opposing Sofronoff’s application for judicial review.

His answer, in part, was that he was contacted by the Integrity Commission after its report had been tabled and when it was known that Sofronoff was taking court action.

I labelled this excursion into the courts for a claim of possible parliamentary privilege as “novel”, language that befitted my low place in the pecking order.

Others, much higher in that order, have been more outspoken this week about the extraordinary nature of the claim.

I was particularly attracted to the observation that if the claim of privilege to stop a judicial review in its track was correct, then any number of politicians, present and future, would rue the day that they fell for that trick: done over by an inquiry and no chance of review.

But the problem, one to be solved right now, is what is to be done with our Integrity Commission? It failed Sofronoff. It failed Janet Albrechtsen. Who will it fail when it issues a report, years late, on the Campbell school affair?

I have previously written that the IC should be abolished.

Whether that does or does not happen, it is essential for the maintenance of public confidence that the commissioner Michael Adams KC resign immediately. I expect that he has pressing responsibilities elsewhere.

Should that not happen then, for the same reasons of maintenance of public confidence in the IC, the Assembly needs to pass a simple amendment to the Integrity Commission Act in these terms, Section 25A: “the holder of the office of Commissioner holds no office”. 

That’s a solution, short and blunt, but known to solve the problem.

Author Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.