The territory's police force has offered to report more details of misconduct and corruption investigations, rather than face the scrutiny of an ACT integrity commission.
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ACT Policing Chief Police Officer Justine Saunders made the offer during a Legislative Assembly committee hearing on the proposal to create a territory-level anti-corruption commission on Thursday.
The committee has heard from previous witnesses that more oversight was needed of the territory's police, particularly as the ACT's police force are not technically overseen by any territory bodies.
But CPO Saunders said the existing oversight of police by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, Australian Commission Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI) and the AFP's internal professional standards unit was sufficient.
She argued the current oversight of the territory's police force was working well, given it was a model for other federal agencies, and that, in simple terms, 'if it's not broken, don't fix it'.
CPO Saunders said that while one option before the committee was creating a new commission, the government could also consider 'enhancing the existing mechanisms'.
But she said a commission would incur extra expense and there was an opportunity for the government to 'leverage' the services of ACT Policing and the federal police more generally to the commission.
She also said that if there was an expectation of more transparency, she was 'very happy' to explore increased public reporting on such issues to the territory government.
CPO Saunders also said ACT Policing was also currently investigating five cases of misconduct and abuse of public office outside the police force, but getting cases to a criminal standard was often difficult due to a lack of record-keeping.
Asked about internal investigations, CPO Saunders referred to AFP assistant commissioner Ray Johnson, who said he could not provide specific details about cases, but all had to be referred to the ACLEI.
But he said over the past three years there were 11 such allegations in 2013-14,15 in 2014-15 and 10 in 2015-16 and he expected a similar number to be reported in the 2016-17 annual report.
ACT Policing's latest annual report shows that of the 10 allegations of police corruption reported in 2015-16, one was "established", while the investigating officer used their "discretion not to proceed" in three other cases and 18 allegations were "ongoing".
