It’s a good time to be corrupt, says legal affairs columnist HUGH SELBY arguing that the nation’s slow and failed integrity and anti-corruption bodies should be abolished.

The permanent anti-corruption bodies around Australia seemed like good ideas at the time, but experience has shown that they have not and will not be value for money. They are a failed experiment.

Created as a feel-good political exercise, when they do their job properly they are emasculated by politicians all too eager to put the genie of public accountability back in the bottle.

One form of emasculation, as seen in Victoria and SA, is to weaken the investigative powers.

The other, easier course, is to appoint as the honchos people who understand that organisational survival, and keeping their well-paid position, depends upon not achieving much.

In today’s world the focus is upon low-hanging fruit. There are to be no more premiers found wanting. Keep the lights shining on local government employment and development shenanigans, educational institution mismanagement, and staff misbehaviour in our offshore refugee prisons.

We are told that anti-corruption bodies are to “educate” everyone about corrupt conduct. 

But such programs are pointless: people know the difference between right and wrong. 

However, life experience tells us that knowing the difference is not always front of mind for some people, in all walks of life, when they make decisions.

For some people, life’s journey is the sum of the opportunities to rip off others and get away with it.

“Rip offs” in the private sector are called “corruption” in the public sector.

Common “rip offs” include selling underweight produce, creating and paying fictitious businesses for false services as the school, sporting body or charity bookkeeper, selling false documents such as roadworthy certificates for vehicles that are unsafe or improperly modified, or scamming vulnerable people of their life savings with investment schemes.

Public sector “corruption” is inevitable because there is so much money to be made by subverting tender and procurement processes, “assisting” development applications for dishonest developers, as well as facilitating or obtaining licences to do this, that or the other nefarious damage to land and water resources.

Our criminal law covers these practices. The ACT Criminal Code, chapter 3, covers theft, fraud, bribery and related offences. “Abuse of public office” is a wide ambit offence (section 359). 

This is not to say that our current criminal laws are adequate for the task. They are not. For example, we don’t have a national approach to the recovery of “the proceeds of crime”. In turn, this means that there is no cadre of experienced police and prosecutors who can “follow the money” anywhere in this nation using one law and one procedure.

A key question, given that corruption is going to occur, is how do we enable our “best and brightest” investigators and prosecutors to secure convictions, followed by imprisonment and quick and effective proceeds of crime recovery processes to deter others?

The inadequacy of current laws has been shown by the failure to recover from former NSW Minister Eddie Obeid much of his ill gotten millions, despite years spent trying to do so. In March, the NSW Crime Commission obtained a court order freezing $30 million worth of Sydney real estate linked to Obeid. Apparently, this action followed unsuccessful attempts to “follow the money” that he had amassed from corrupt acts.

What needs to be done

The legal framework to combat “corruption” needs to be national, not parochial. It must define the prohibited conduct so that jurors can understand it. The sentencing tariff must be high. There must be a straightforward, effective legal and procedural process for the quick freezing and seizing of the proceeds of crime.

The integrity and anti-corruption bodies should be abolished.

Some funds presently wasted on those bodies can instead be used to ensure that talented police investigators and prosecutors are upskilled to successfully investigate and prosecute complex corrupt schemes.

Necessarily, these investigators will work alongside experts in surveillance, financial and IT forensics, and data management. Most team staff can be drawn from our existing police investigative and forensic services.

Their salaries need to reflect their skills.

We already have an organisation capable of managing such team inquiries. The board of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) includes the commissioners of our police forces. ACIC is already responsible for “controlled operations”. These are described in the most recent annual report as: “Used by law enforcement agencies to investigate, disrupt and dismantle serious and organised crime. [The offences] range from corruption, money laundering and importation of illicit goods and substances to terrorism and cybercrime.” 

ACIC has coercive powers to compel answers to questions and to require the handing over to them of documents and physical items.

These powers go well beyond the “usual” police powers, are tightly controlled, but are a vital investigative tool to combat complex corrupt criminal conduct, such as Obeid’s.

Sadly, although we have the means to deter and punish corruption, we lack the political will to replace a fragmented, failed approach with a better, national one. 

It’s a good time to be corrupt.

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