The ACT's parole board operated for more than a decade without a formal policy governing board members' potential conflicts of interest or bias, with the board only formally endorsing a policy last month.
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The lack of a policy governing the territory's Sentence Administration Board was raised during a Legislative Assembly committee hearing last week.
Chairwoman Laura Beacroft revealed it was not until she was appointed as chair early last year that the board set about drafting a formal policy to govern members' potential conflicts of interest and bias.
The revelation came after an associate judge recently ruled two board members, former federal integrity commissioner Philip Moss and Janine Bromwich, were biased in refusing a convicted sex offender bail in a hearing earlier this year.
The policy was formally endorsed on October 30 this year, just days after the associate judge's ruling in that matter. A policy was not previously in place at the board, despite it operating since 2006.
The board determines the nature and extent of parole for convicted criminals in the ACT, with potential bias a critical issue given the over-representation of some groups of people, such as indigenous Australians, within the prison population.
The legislation governing the board's activities did require board members to internally disclose potential conflicts of interest, possibly leading to members recusing themselves from some decisions.
But the laws make no mention of bias or apprehended bias, a critical issue tested in the recent case in the ACT Supreme Court.
A spokeswoman from the justice directorate has said the government did not need to specifically include clauses in the original legislation governing bias, nor demand a conflict of interest or bias policy be put in place to help govern the board, arguing such measures were not included in legislation for other government boards.
Ms Beacroft said she and deputy chair Donald Malcolmson had worked on an early draft of the new policy since mid-June 2017, and previous chairs and boards had "applied an unwritten framework on conflict and bias".
"Upon appointment in 2017, each member was inducted by one of the judicial members where conflict of interest and bias were explained, and any issues arising [were] discussed including that declared interests would be placed on a register," she said.
Ms Beacroft also said a formal conflict of interest register had been created since she was appointed chairwoman in May last year, and an early draft of the proposed policy had been in place before it was formally adopted.
She said that work on the policy began before the recent court case involving bias, and since the case, she and Mr Malcolmson had spoken with other board members about its implications and would follow up with further training.
"The current written policy supports principles and duties of the board set out in the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005 and the Public Sector Management Act 1994 – the latter principles and duties have guided previous boards," Ms Beacroft said.
Asked why previous boards had not formally adopted such a policy, she said she was an ordinary board member before being appointed chairwoman and she "acknowledges the able chairing of her predecessor[s]".
Ms Beacroft also said she was aware of the "unwritten framework" on conflict and bias applied by her predecessors, that previous boards had a majority of legally trained members, and the board was smaller before May last year.
She said that in the interests of transparency, she and Mr Malcolmson decided there would be a written policy, along with talks and training for board members.
The justice directorate spokeswoman said the adoption of specific policies was an administrative matter for the board and, to ensure its independence, the government did not recommend or legislate how it conducted internal business.
She also said the government was currently considering the judgment in the Supreme Court case, and the government could not comment on any potential outcomes of that consideration.
Opposition corrections spokeswoman Giulia Jones said it appeared a significant failure of process had occurred over the lack of a policy, but she was pleased steps had now been taken to address the issue.