Neither the CCC nor I make any suggestion whatever that he has used this email to solicit bribes or do otherwise than his legal and moral duty as a steward of the public interest in Queensland. The impropriety, if there was one, and the scope for corruption involves a suggestion that he consciously sought to go outside his obligations under Queensland public record laws, whereby the official correspondence of a public official is available to the public record.

A minister's obligations to government archives do not cover their every word or act. A minister is also a member of parliament, and records of his electoral work are not public records in the same sense that his records of his decisions, appointments, discussions and negotiations as a minister in charge of a department would be. Nor are records of a politician's purely political work – the business of party meetings, preselections, winning arguments and marshalling numbers in the party, even the arguments taking place in the party caucus.

Mark Bailey's private email correspondence involved some discussions with officials of the Electrical Trades Union – political supporters of the Labor Party, but also people who could stand to benefit from decisions he could make. The public does not know the content of these discussions – because Bailey deleted them once he realised they might be able to be subpoenaed as public records, made the subject of an FOI request, or required to be copied to the state archives. But the CCC and the archivist know enough about the contents to be persuaded that some of the contents involved discussions about things that Bailey was thinking, or doing, or proposing to be doing, as a minister in charge of a department. One imagines that, in this day and age, the Queensland Police, the CCC and, probably, the archivist are able to retrieve most deleted emails.

Queensland's CCC is these days a somewhat reticent body bearing only a passing resemblance to the noisy and intrusive watchdog recommended by the Fitzgerald Royal Commission into Joh Bjelke Petersen-era political, police and bureaucratic corruption in Queensland. Its remit, as with some of the other essentially tame anti-corruption bodies, has been whittled down by very restrictive definitions of what corruption, or potential corruption, could be. But even the CCC can recognise the potential for widespread corruption if ministers or officials are to be allowed to maintain their own records and files about their official activities, and to keep them from the public record.

"In reviewing the emails, the CCC did not identify any evidence to support allegations Minister Bailey had used his personal email account to engage in negotiations with the Electrical Trades Union that would amount to corrupt conduct," its report, issued on Wednesday, said. "However, the CCC considers there is sufficient evidence to raise a reasonable suspicion of corrupt conduct relating to the potential destruction of public records by the Minister as this may be an offence under the Public Records Act 2002.

"The use by a minister of a private email account for ministerial purposes is not of itself corrupt conduct. The types of emails, their content, conduct and decisions relating to such emails and how the emails are treated if they are public records needs to be considered to determine whether it is corrupt conduct. [But] the CCC is of the view the use of a personal email account for ministerial purposes is in breach of both the Queensland Ministerial Handbook and the Ministerial Information Security Policy. As these breaches are not criminal offences, they are not in the CCC's jurisdiction.

"The CCC considers the use of private email addresses by any Member of Parliament or public servant for official business lacks transparency and is a corruption risk. The CCC takes this opportunity to remind elected officials and the heads of public sector agencies in Queensland of the inherent corruption risks of using private emails for official business."

Bailey might think himself a victim. The very same inquiry showed that at least two of his Queensland ministerial colleagues were also using private email accounts as well as the official email facilities and systems in their ministerial offices. No one is alleging any effort to conceal or destroy their records.

It's not a problem confined to Queensland. An even more tame and restricted South Australian anti-corruption agency warned its ministers and public servants against the practice ages ago.

It's what Hillary Clinton got herself into such trouble about while she was the American Secretary of State. That, and the fact that she, as Bailey is alleged to have done, decided to delete many of the emails, even though, she insists, she deleted only personal and private material, rather than her dealings with her officials, her colleagues and foreign governments.

No one has proven her a liar, or at least a person guilty of a criminal offence, though Donald Trump suggested, during the election campaign that her conduct had been criminal, that she ought to be in jail, and that he was going to send her there. A good many Americans thought there must have been fire behind the smoke, and, in any event regarded her explanations as suspicious and self-serving, and, as the CCC has commented, capable of concealing crime, fraud, bribery or other types of corruption if it has occurred.

Clinton was far from the first American Secretary of State to prefer her own Blackberry, and her own private email server, to those maintained on her behalf by the US State Department. Colin Powell was much the same, though he does not seem to have had the same fondness for housekeeping and wholesale deletion. And he did warn Hillary that official conversations maintained on private channels were public records.

Criticism of Clinton was the greater because it is obvious that hostile foreign powers – even ostensibly friendly ones – would try to hack, intercept and decode her communications. She did have encryption systems, but, like the ones that Malcolm Turnbull uses, these are public access ones, perhaps already cracked by Russian, Chinese or perhaps French, German, Japanese or British spooks.

Malcolm Turnbull has long been a techno junkie, able to mansplain modern information technology until the eyes glaze over, and has seemed unconcerned by widespread criticism of his use of private accounts, and publicly available encryption software. Indeed, it is said that there is, virtually, a private server chat room by which his Cabinet colleagues and other groups can talk, plot, argue and negotiate with each other. While Whatsap and similar software is said to be very secure, it is unlikely to be anything like as safe from outside interception or decryption as the government's most highly secure communications or record keeping systems.

Perhaps steps have been taken to ensure that such communications are retained for the public record. One can be sure that security, archives and mainstream public servants are uneasy about it. But Turnbull is confident that he knows more than his experts and advisers. Perhaps his arrogance and self-confidence should be seen alongside his current campaign, on national security grounds, to force multinational IT folk such as Google, Facebook and Whatsapp to disclose details of their encryption systems to the security services. He wants our spooks and cops (and Britain's and America's) to be able to decode any such messages, at either end, by warrant, if they feel the need to. He might not be doing this, or using the technology, if he thought them presently insecure.

Yet the consensus of the experts is that the identification of coding tricks, weaknesses or "trapdoors" to bodies such as America's NSA, Britain's GCHQ or Australia's ASD makes nations such as Australia more, not less, vulnerable to terrorism or crime. Never mind, as will the expensive and foolish creation of a centrally directed military, police and security apparatus, it is more about the appearance of toughness, and the semblance of resolute action, rather than any anticipated effect.

It is actually possible that some nation state, some terrorist organisation, some multinational traders, or some international criminals could think it worth the effort to attack and listen to Turnbull chatting with his colleagues. Just as possible, of course, is the risk that some mysterious exponent of cyber-warfare, from perhaps China, Russia or North Korea might use the vulnerabilities Turnbull has created to paralyse our communications at some time of crisis.

It is unlikely that anyone would think it worth the effort to spy on, or disrupt a Queensland Colossus of Roads, or an ACT minister, were one the sort of man or woman to use their personal emails to do ministerial business, receive lobbies or advice from trade union friends and relations, or exchange pleasantries with any of the developers, urgers, candidates for public appointments or applicants for grants or permissions with whom they do daily business.

The risk, if such things happen, is not to the national security, but to the public interest and the public purse. Ministerial email and record systems are provided without charge, and link up not only to archival systems, but to relevant departments and to the system of Cabinet government. They are modern, up to date, and efficient, and, for those in office, free. No one has any need to use alternative systems for convenience, greater efficiency or to get around any sort of weakness in the configuration of government.

Indeed, the cynical might have grounds to believe that the only reason for avoiding the officially provided equipment would be concealment, and to avoid the risk of disclosure of something the official was embarrassed about. To avoid there being a public record or some factor which had influenced a decision, or which explained it. To prevent a record being accessible under FOI, handed over to a police or corruption inquiry, made the subject of whistle-blower's disclosure, or a political opponent. Up there with other devices used, from detachable sticky paper onwards, to avoid scrutiny, accountability, or public discussion of the real reasons actuating some very curious decisions and relationships. Almost automatically suggestive of a guilty conscience or consciousness of impropriety.

Public servants being invited to consider ethical issues, public service codes of conduct or feeling pressured from above or without to engage in something with which they feel uncomfortable are often counselled to think aloud about how they would explain their action to an estimates committee of parliament, or a commission of inquiry. All the more so if the essence of such transactions is there on the public record, able to emerge at any point.

Some politicians express weariness about popular cynicism about the honesty of politicians, thinking that actual corruption and abuse of power is less common and more likely to be exposed, even with existing protections, than many think. Against this, of course, is the ever-expanding galaxy of political cupidity on display at all levels of government and administration.

But even where corruption, impropriety or maladministration is at a low level, one of the things restraining them is the existence of systems that can, or might, detect it. Systems not nicely integrated with each other, so that they are susceptible, as new Commonwealth police and security systems will be, of easy interference from above. Someone contemplating naughty behaviour must fear not only a real chance of being caught, and public disgrace if that happens, but a blow which could come from anywhere. Small wonder that some interested parties would like both a federal and an ACT ICAC to be as demure, tame, and constrained in function as possible, and, even if able to be spurred into action, forced to do its job behind closed doors, and unable to tell the public what it is doing.

The AFP's submission to the Assembly inquiry into the form of an ACT ICAC confirms its belief that there is simply no need for it to be subject to such a body. On May 22, nine weeks ago, I put in an FOI request for details of discussions between the AFP and the ACT government on this matter.

There had been no response within the statutory limit of 28 days, other than a request, cheerfully but cynically for a months extension. Then a letter unconvinced that any public interest would be served by disclosure. Withdrawn quickly. Then, just as the extension was expiring, the AFP FOI unit "realised " – supposedly for the first time – that disclosure of discussions with the territory government involved disclosure of discussions with the government of a state or territory. It thus granted itself a further 30 days for these consultations, guaranteeing that there would be no disclosure before the committee had finished its work.

The same unit is also dragging out disclosure of how and why it disclosed so much prejudicial material after its tax raids. A cynic might think that a body with such resistance to open government needed a few heavy duty Maglites focused on its leadership and operations, not exemption from scrutiny. It leaves the force wide open to corruption.

Jack Waterford is a former editor of The Canberra Times

jwaterfordcanberra@gmail.com.