The Institute has lodged a submission with the Senate Select Committee on the Establishment of a National Integrity Commission, arguing that no such federal anti-corruption body is needed.
Our submission noted that we favour strong anti-corruption institutions, mechanisms, and laws, but also argued that there is no demonstrated need for an overarching federal anti-corruption body, and there are many drawbacks to such a body.
In particular, the Institute argued that proponents of a National Integrity Commission needed to identify:
- A demonstrated need for a Commission, amongst Australia’s already existing web of integrity and anti-corruption bodies and mechanisms;
- How a Commission would interact with those bodies and mechanisms to prevent turf-wars and inefficient duplication of oversight; and
- What alleged problems of corruption and misconduct a Commission would target, and why a Commission would be a better way of targeting those problems than some other law reform approach.
Our full submission is available here.
Further details about the inquiry can be found on the Committee’s website. The deadline for submissions is 20 April 2016.
