Question Time

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): My question is to the Premier. Does he agree with statements made today by Labor Premier Morris Iemma on the need for state governments to have independent commissions against corruption? Premier Iemma stated today, and I quote—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: He stated:

Corruption thrives in the dark—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: They don't want to hear it, do they, Mr Speaker. They do not want to hear it. He is the only Labor premier who doesn't want an ICAC.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members will not interject. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Premier Iemma stated—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the Attorney.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: All calm? Very good.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Premier Iemma stated:

Corruption thrives in the dark, and it resists the tools of conventional policing. Any jurisdiction which doesn't have an ICAC type body is in my view just crazy. If you don't have one you have either discovered a secret of human nature that has eluded the rest of us or, as is more likely to be the case, you're just kidding yourself.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney-General.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:29): We have better than an ICAC. We have the police Anti-Corruption Branch—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: We have whistleblower legislation. We have the Ombudsman, a very good Ombudsman too. We have the Auditor-General. Mr Speaker, South Australia is better served by those agencies than it is by the $30 million construct that the Leader of the Opposition wants. Here is someone from New South Wales who wrote for The Advertiser on the question of an ICAC. He had experience of it from New South Wales where he was the chief executive of the Liverpool council, and he wrote:

...'If you want to destroy someone, report them to ICAC'...the organisation I headed was investigated three times. Each time it was cleared of any wrongdoing, but not before enormous damage was sustained by the council and its workers. The New South Wales ICAC Commissioner recently admitted that of the 2,500 complaints of corrupt conduct ICAC receives each year, only 50 warrant serious investigation. A mere five or six lead to full-blown inquiries.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Those can be conveniently handled in South Australia by the police Anti-Corruption Branch, the Ombudsman, the Auditor-General—

Mr Pisoni interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: For the information of the member for Unley, we are talking about Mr Brian Carr, CEO of Light Regional Council, who has been a CEO in local government for 26 years.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: He went on to say:

In the highly charged political climate of New South Wales, there are two main groups who have become adept at exploiting the ICAC system. The first group comprises those who want to exert inappropriate pressure on government officials. To do this, they use the threat of an ICAC investigation in an improper way. This approach is designed to paralyse elected officials with fear and render them incapable of making hard decisions.

He continued:

One high-profile New South Wales lawyer, seeking to manipulate local government decisions, would regularly bully elected members by threatening them that if they acted contrary to his professional advice, their behaviour could be seen as 'ICAC-able'...The second group is made up—

—the Leader of the Opposition, who marched into police headquarters with information that was subsequently proved to be of no value whatsoever—

—of political opponents and those with an axe to grind. For personal or political reasons—

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: No, the member for Waite ought to listen to this, because he will see himself in this—

—they wish to maliciously damage the reputation of those in public office. As former CEO of Liverpool Council, one of New South Wales' largest, I saw many disgruntled parties—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The quote continues:

community groups, mayoral aspirants, political candidates, developers and companies who'd lost out on tenders—all misuse ICAC in this way. For them, ICAC was the perfect vehicle to vent their spleen, leak their spurious allegations to the media and publicly injure the elected official they held a grudge against.

Gee, does anyone recognise that picture?

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: It does sound familiar, doesn't it?

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: It does sound a bit familiar. Mr Brian Carr went on:

Is this really the kind of unchecked anti-corruption system we want for South Australia? In my view, it merely paves the way for a more sinister form of corruption to flourish.