The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption's tenacity and persistence paid big dividends this week when one of Sydney's most disreputable and dishonest public figures of recent memory was sentenced to a minimum of three years' jail.
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Eddie Obeid is not the first NSW politician or public servant to be jailed for misconduct while in public office – and he probably won't be the last. However, ICAC's success in the NSW Supreme Court will deter other figures from engaging in dishonest activity in future, which is about all that an anti-corruption body can ever hope to achieve.
It's a different story in the ACT and federally, however, where no ICAC-style agencies operate and where traditionally there has been little enthusiasm for their establishment. That may change in Canberra over the next four years, since the Greens have pledged to establish an integrity commission and where, crucially, they have the clout to ensure this occurs, thanks to their governing coalition deal with Labor. Indeed, a select committee to look into the most effective model for the ACT was established this week.
It's sometimes asserted that a specialist Commonwealth anti-corruption body is not needed because a) the Australian Federal Police is adequately equipped to investigate and apprehend shonks, crooks and shysters and b) corruption at the federal level is mostly trivial.
In fact, the AFP lacks a unit focussed on serious corruption, local or federal. It has failed to develop the structures, expertise or professional relationships to mount proactive investigations of the type undertaken by Britain's Serious Fraud Office or the FBI in America. And it's curiously averse to thorough investigation of matters involving governments, notably the AWB food for oil scandal of 2005.
With $US220 million in kickbacks to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the AWB debacle remains the greatest international trade scandal in Australian history – and one in which the AFP failed to deliver concrete results. This week, a civil law suit brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission against two former AWB executives – criminal proceedings were deemed unlikely to succeed – collapsed.
Fraud perpetrated against Commonwealth departments and agencies, either with the connivance of bureaucrats or because of poor management, remains a major problem. One example is the Department of Education and Training's community support program for child-care providers operating out of suburban homes, which has been defrauded of over $1 billion in the past year as a result of lax controls and oversight.
The money fraudulently diverted from the ACT Treasury is orders of magnitude less than that, but some of the circumstances detailed in recent Auditor-General reports are no less troubling. They indicate repeated departures from good management, the politicisation of senior public servant appointments, cronyism, and frequent conflicts of interest.
The apparent indifference of politicians to what the public might think of such matters remains the strongest argument for establishing commissions federally and in the ACT.
