I'm guessing these questions were the - social - motivations behind the comments of Trade Minister Andrew Robb at the weekend. Of course, his response does come after many media reports about the travails of Senator Arthur Sinodinos, who stood aside last week from his position as assistant treasurer in the federal government. He decided to leave his portfolio - even though the budget is on the horizon - amid revelations he was chairman of company Australian Water Holdings when a third was owned by the interests of corrupt businessman and politician Eddie Obeid and that AWH channelled donations to the NSW Liberal Party during Sinodinos' tenure as Liberal Party treasurer and president.

Robb was reported as saying governments should reassess the powers of corruption-fighting agencies, such as the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Why?

From Robb's view (and I can only make these judgments based on reports in the media), it is these corruption-busting standing authorities that may undermine reputations without following traditional rules of evidence. But it's interesting that Robb was keen to point out what he thought were the shortcomings of the ICAC and ICAC-like institutions when he might like to look closer to home.

Since the Coalition was elected, two royal commissions have been announced. Unions. Insulation. The ICAC and other bodies like it are permanent. They exist in the context of the law and anyone can make a complaint. If those bodies find cause, they investigate. Royal commissions have similar coercive powers - but it's politicians who decide the targets.

One is a standing body and everyone knows what it's doing and what its processes are; both the legislation and the processes are well-established and with some track record.

Professor of law at the University of NSW George Williams has strong views on this. He said on Monday: ''ICAC operates at arm's length from government and royal commissions are political tools and enforced by someone the government has appointed.''

Williams has already attacked the federal government's decision to mount an inquiry into the home insulation program. Earlier this year, he wrote of what he described as a stoush between Attorney-General George Brandis and shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus about the release of cabinet documents into what has been dubbed the pink batts commission. He said that the early release of documents was a challenge to Australian democracy, not least because cabinet ministers would no longer be able to be confident that their decisions would be viewed long after the heat of battle cooled. Williams said pink batts has the ''appearance of political payback''.

And what if more of that political payback rolls out in the public eye? Does it matter if names get muddied along the way, so long as the end result is a less corrupt political process? Should the end justify the means, whether it's standing bodies trying to stamp out corruption or royal commissions trying to stamp out unionism?

''Corruption-busting bodies like ICAC may be the only way to bring to light endemic or systemic corruption in political circles,'' Williams says. ''The problem of political corruption is such a difficult one for normal processes to root out.

''It may be that the very people who ought to be fixing the problem who are the ones caught up in the corruption.''

John Agius, SC, has extended experience in this area and was counsel assisting in the Cole royal commission, the AWB royal commission and the Wood royal commission into the NSW police.

''Commissions, whether standing or ad hoc, need to be very careful about the way they conduct themselves because people's reputations can be damaged and the damage can be very unfair … [but] public hearings can be very important on a whole range of fronts and sometimes people's reputations can suffer,'' he says.

But he says of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that the balance has clearly fallen one way and ''I don't think anyone would argue that it's fallen the wrong way''. He says ''the hearing room can become a tool in the investigative process''.

Agius has been a barrister for nearly 40 years and has this considered opinion on the difference between bodies like the ICAC and royal commissions: ''The key difference is that the ICAC has a full-time commissioner and a full-time staff and a charter which regulates the way in which it can conduct itself. It is not possible for governments or opposition to influence the ICAC whereas, with a royal commission, it gets to choose the commissioner on an ad hoc basis and choose the terms of reference.''

Politicians love transparency, until they are the ones we are looking through. Let's ensure that any re-examination of the powers of any commission entrenches our ability to see right through them and those who operate them.

It's the public's right to know, not a politician's right to suppress.

Twitter @jennaprice or email jenna_p@bigpond.net.au