The forgotten plan for a federal anti-corruption agency

By Richard Mulgan
Updated April 23 2018 - 8:12pm, first published August 5 2014 - 3:00am

Recent sensational hearings at NSW's Independent Commission Against Corruption have sparked renewed calls for a federal equivalent. If the ICAC has been so successful in exposing the extent of corruption and illegality among that state's political class and its hangers-on, why not establish a commission to shine a similar spotlight on Canberra? After all, the federal Liberal Party has been implicated in some of the illegal donation-laundering schemes practised by the party in NSW. The Abbott government has also had its skirmishes with alleged corruption, over parliamentarians' travel expenses and charging for access to ministers. Previously, Labor was tarnished by the corrupt actions of Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson, MPs on whose support it depended. Against that background, the call by former ICAC head David Ipp, QC, on the ABC's Four Corners program, for a federal ICAC to help counter a serious ''breakdown of trust'' will have resonated with many members of the public.

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