Media release embargo 6am 18th May 2022 31 former judges have signed an open letter calling on political leaders to establish a National Integrity Commission. Signatories include former judge of the High Court Mary Gaudron QC, former Chief Justice of Queensland Catherine Holmes AC QC, and former Federal Court judge Michael Barker QC. The letter states: “Despite… Read More

It’s not hard to tell when Prime Minister Scott Morrison gets a media question he doesn’t like this election campaign. Just watch his response to the queries he’s getting, again and again, about a federal integrity commission. Ask him about his stance on the issue, and his voice drops a few decibels, his eyelids flutter,… Read More

Labor expects its proposed national integrity commission will examine alleged misconduct from as far back as 15 years, with both former and current politicians eligible to be investigated under a broad definition of corruption. Unlike the Coalition, Labor has promised to create an integrity body with retrospective powers, meaning it could examine decisions taken before… Read More

There was a wide divide exposed between the federal Coalition government and Victoria’s Liberal leadership that many people missed this week. With integrity becoming a key issue in the federal campaign, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, was decrying the prospect of a “kangaroo court” where a premier could be grilled publicly without being accused of… Read More

One of NSW’s anti-corruption watchdog commissioners has taken an extraordinary swipe at the agency’s critics – including Prime Minister Scott Morrison – labelling them “buffoons” with ill-informed views. Stephen Rushton, SC, one of three Independent Commission Against Corruption commissioners, told a NSW parliamentary inquiry on Monday that describing the ICAC as a kangaroo court was… Read More

Written by Centre Chair Anthony Whealy. Originally published in the Australian Financial Review on May 2. The deliberate misuse of large amounts of public money for political gain is seriously corrupt. To label it as mere ‘pork barrelling’ is a misleading misnomer. It is a concern when a major newspaper, in this case, The Australian… Read More

Queensland Liberal MP Trevor Evans has warned the crowd at a candidates’ forum in his marginal inner-Brisbane seat about the “scary” outcomes experienced by some of those investigated by state anti-corruption bodies. And despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s refusal to commit to setting up such an agency if the Coalition is returned to government after… Read More

Written by Jeff Sparrow. Originally published in the Saturday Paper April 23-29. You can buy a copy of the book here. After absorbing the first pages of this book, most readers will, one suspects, mentally substitute “the bastards” for “them” in its title. Keeping Them Honest: The case for a genuine national integrity commission and other… Read More

Election campaigns are expensive exercises. Advertising, including on social media, letter-boxing, even corflutes (the candidate posters named for the plastic material they’re printed on) all cost big bucks. Candidates travel all over their electorates for several weeks while the major party leaders jet around the country during a campaign. This means that, well before election… Read More

Barnaby Joyce does not think many Australians will actually care that a national anti-corruption watchdog is still a pipedream when they cast their vote. The Deputy Prime Minister’s latest comments on why the Coalition has walked away from its 2019 election pledge to establish a Commonwealth integrity commission show the political calculation made in the… Read More