INDEPENDENT COMMISSIONER AGAINST CORRUPTION BILL

Final Stages

The Legislative Council insisted on its amendments Nos 3, 24, 39, 40, 42 and 43, agreed not to insist on its amendment No. 6 to which the House of Assembly had disagreed but made an alternative amendment in lieu thereof and made a consequential amendment to the bill as indicated in the following schedule:

Alternative amendment to Amendment No. 6—

Clause 7, page 13, after line 15—After subclause (3) insert:

(3aa) Before a person is appointed to be the Commissioner, the Attorney-General must ensure that the position is advertised in a newspaper or newspapers circulating in each State and Territory.

(3aab) A person may only be appointed to be the Commissioner if, following referral by the Attorney-General of the proposed appointment to the Statutory Officers Committee established under the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991—

(a) the appointment has been approved by the Committee; or

(b) the Committee has not, within 7 days of the referral, or such longer period as is allowed by the Attorney-General, notified the Attorney-General in writing that it does not approve the appointment.

(3aac) Despite the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Statutory Officers Committee must not report on, or publish material in relation to, matters referred to the Committee under subsection (3aab) except to the extent allowed by the Attorney-General (but this subsection does not derogate from section 15I(2) of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991).

Consequential amendment—

New clause, Schedule 3, page 67, after line 39—After Schedule 3 clause 49 insert:

49AA—Amendment of section 15H—Membership of Committee

Section 15H(1)—delete subsection (1) and substitute:

(1) The Committee consists of 6 members of whom—

(a) 3 must be members of the House of Assembly appointed by the House of Assembly, of whom—

(i) at least 1 must be appointed from the group led by the Leader of the Opposition; and

(ii) at least 1 must be appointed from the group led by the Leader of the Government; and

(iii) at least 1 must be a member who does not belong to the group led by the Leader of the Opposition or the group led by the Leader of the Government (unless there is no such member or no such member consents to appointment to the Committee); and

(b) 3 must be members of the Legislative Council appointed by the Legislative Council, of whom—

(i) at least 1 must be appointed from the group led by the Leader of the Opposition; and

(ii) at least 1 must be appointed from the group led by the Leader of the Government; and

(iii) at least 1 must be a member who does not belong to the group led by the Leader of the Opposition or the group led by the Leader of the Government (unless there is no such member or no such member consents to appointment to the Committee).

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's message.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I have a point of clarification. I certainly want to make a few remarks about this, in addition to or connected with the resolution of this matter between the houses, and I suspect other members wish to do so also. Would that occur now?

The ACTING CHAIR (Hon. M.J. Wright): Yes, you can do that and I will give the same opportunity to other members if they wish as well.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Thank you. First of all, I indicate to the committee what the resolution of this matter is going to be. It is essentially that the new propositions advanced by the Legislative Council, and in particular their amendment No. 6 and the consequential amendment to No. 6, will be acceptable from our point of view, and we will no longer be insisting on our disagreement to the other provisions which were the subject of the original disagreement. I think that is a fair summary of our position. If I understand things correctly, that should mean that, when we conclude this debate, we now have the matter resolved as between the houses, which is terrific.

I want to say a little bit about this journey that we are on and talk about just a few aspects of it, because there have been a few aspects of this in the recent past that I think have been quite admirable demonstrations of what the parliament is capable of doing, and there have been a few that are less admirable. I want to give members a bit of a history of how this has evolved, from the government's point of view anyway.

In August 2009, the then premier called for the introduction of a national anticorruption commissioner. As members may or may not recall, in May 2010 I attended a meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General where I raised that particular proposition with them and I was advised that that was not something that found favour across the commonwealth. On 6 May 2010, I announced a review into the operation and effectiveness of the existing public integrity system within South Australia. On 14 May 2010, I called for submissions on the preservation and enhancement of the public integrity system. On 14 June 2010, those submissions closed.

In November 2010, there was release of a discussion paper entitled 'An Integrated Model: A Review of the Public Integrity Institutions in South Australia and an Integrated Model for the Future' for public comment, which we called the green paper. On 25 March 2011, submissions on the discussion paper closed and a total of 26 submissions were received, with a few late submissions nevertheless accepted for consideration.

In the 2011-12 budget cycle the government allocated $11.4 million over four years to establish and run the proposed new anticorruption body. The funding was provided from 2012-13 and is currently held in contingency, as I understand it, by the Department of Treasury and Finance.

Mrs Redmond interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes. On 24 October 2011, cabinet approved drafting of legislation to establish an Independent Commission Against Corruption and a separate Office of Public Integrity. In March of this year, consultation began with the Telecommunications and Surveillance Law Branch of the commonwealth Attorney-General's Department about amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act (Commonwealth) to enable ICAC to utilise telephone intercepts. On 13 February this year, consultation on the draft bill commenced with the major people involved. On 27 February this year, Mr James Hartnett commenced as the project director for the ICAC or OPI project.

On 30 April this year, cabinet approved the introduction of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Bill. On 30 May, the bill passed the House of Assembly. On the same day, it was received and read for the first time in the Legislative Council. Today is 28 October 2012 and it is about to pass. So, from 30 May until 28 November—not October, November. Yes, I am sorry; I had lost a month, but I have got it back again. Between 30 May and 28 November 2012, this legislation has gone nowhere because basically it has been parked in the Legislative Council.

The reason I have gone over this to some extent is to just point out that there has been a certain momentum about this going on for some time, and any suggestion that this bill has come out of nowhere and has not been the subject of consultation or proper consideration or, indeed, public debate is, quite frankly, nonsense.

The second point I would like to make is, throughout all of that period that I have just described, up to the arrival of this bill in the Legislative Council, at no time, certainly not in here, was it moved or suggested by the opposition that the method of appointment contained in the bill was unsatisfactory. The method of appointment is the method of appointment that applies to judges, the police commissioner, the Auditor-General and virtually everybody else—namely, that they are appointed by the Governor in Executive Council. This was not raised as an issue at all.

I have to say also—and I compliment the Leader of the Opposition for this—that what the opposition did do early on was make it clear that the importance of protecting the integrity and public reputation of an individual who might, for various reasons, come to the attention of the ICAC but never actually be found to have misbehaved or be the subject of any charge needed to be very, very carefully guarded. I give credit where it is due. The Leader of the Opposition was quick out of the blocks to actually agree with the government on that and I commend her for that.

In places like New South Wales, for example, their commission was established and, the next thing you know, their premier is bundled out of office for what turns out to be nothing, but his reputation is in shreds. You cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together again, as far as Mr Greiner is concerned but, bad luck, that is just a casualty of having a so-called open system.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Misfortunes of war.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes. I say again that I commend the Leader of the Opposition for having recognised the total unfairness of the possibility of such a thing occurring to any public official, whether they are an elected member of parliament or anyone else, in South Australia.

So, there we have it: a model which was broadly agreed upon. I think, if I am reasonably accurate in my recollection, the Leader of the Opposition ticked off on a number of things that she thought were important and needed to be contained within the thing and, basically, our draft had them. Then, enter into the equation the Hon. Ann Bressington in the other place who decides, for reasons best known to herself, that she wants to introduce an amendment which would see both houses of parliament having to publicly vote, and possibly debate, the suitability of a candidate.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Trial by ordeal.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Trial by ordeal. In fact, when I conjured this up, I was thinking—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: The duck.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The duck in Monty Python and The Holy Grail where they meet Sir Galahad.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Exactly, Sir Galahad by the pond. I was thinking to myself, 'Is this really what we have descended to?' In a more sombre moment, I thought of the famous senator—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: Remember, that ended with the words 'fair cop'.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Yes, that's right. In a more sombre moment, I am reminded of the great works of that well-known senator from Wisconsin who entertained the American body politic for about a decade. Again, did this actually serve justice? Arguably not. This is a bizarre method of appointment, which does not find any analogue anywhere in this country, and at best you can say it is a crude attempt to graft a bit of American congressional artefact onto the rootstock of Westminster—a most peculiar idea, I would have thought. Anyway, initially I thought the opposition, consistent with their position here, will just treat this for the nonsense that it is and recognise the fact that no sane person of any quality would want to put themselves through that ordeal.

As has been said, it would be potentially a trial by ordeal, and what if only one chamber liked you and the other did not? There you are: not quite there and not quite not there. Then, how do you go back to your colleagues? You might be a member of the bench and all and sundry discover that you are thinking of retiring, you go down there, one chamber likes you, the other chamber does not. You cannot really go back to the bench, because you have told them you are on your way. So, that is the end of you; you are finished. Seriously, what sort of clown would stick their hand up for that? The answer is, the sort that you would not want to have the job, because you would have to be a goose to put your hand up for that.

Mr Bignell: Does that weigh the same as a duck?

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Similar, a similar way of testing, but they are all guilty. Anyway, the Salem witch trial aspect of this is the bit that was offensive to the government. For reasons that one can only speculate upon, the Hon. Stephen Wade picked up on this thing and decided that he was going to run with it.

A cynical person might think that this was an attempt by him to continue to be able to cobble together the coalition of the unwilling that he seems to manage up there in the other place, and that by picking up this suggestion he somehow welded that coalition of the unwilling into one spot and guaranteed a series of votes for the opposition on a number of other matters by reason of his stubborn refusal to move on this one. Who knows; I was not there, but I do know that, from 30 May until today, we have been struggling to move beyond the quagmire that we got into when the Bressington amendment got in there.

Not that long ago—a matter of six to eight weeks ago—I had a meeting with the Hon. Stephen Wade and the Leader of the Opposition and indicated to them basically as I have just told the house. My problem was with this bizarre appointment method and what it would do to the potential pool of candidates. If they wanted to have some method other than the appointment by Executive Council, I would be happy to have a conversation with them about it, and I put a number of options on the table and invited them to have a think about them and get back to me. Well, they did not get back to me with anything, really.

The next thing I know, we are heading for deadlock. I have become pretty experienced in deadlocks since the Hon. Stephen Wade has been shadow attorney-general. He seems to like deadlocks. He likes the comfort of them, I think: the idea of sitting around with a bunch of your colleagues from both houses, nobody knowing what is going on outside that room, Mr Crump being able to sit there and take notes, and to be able to say the same things over and over again in a sort of Groundhog Day type experience. In fact, I was trying to get a small recording device to be able to play that song I Got You Babe at all the deadlock conferences, because that is how poor old Bill Murray used to wake up every morning.

Anyway, we are trying to avoid the deadlock conference. What happens then? It seems like everybody is committed to a particular course and then we have an attempt by the Hon. Robert Brokenshire to break through the impasse. He suggested that, if there are judges who are going to be appointed, they should be appointed as per the government's original proposition, but somebody else could go through the Statutory Officers Committee.

The government said, 'Right, this is a fair compromise. We will go with the Hon. Robert Brokenshire's compromise.' It became evident that the opposition and the coalition of the unwilling were not prepared to go with that. Why? Well, the argument was trotted out, 'Oh, why are judges special?' Thereafter, there followed a week (last week, which is one of the longest weeks of my life) of negotiations with the crossbenchers and Mr Wade, pretty well every day, in order to try to land on some agreement, and nothing came of it. We basically broke up on Friday without any resolution.

I discovered on Friday that the Hon. Robert Brokenshire had moved a further amendment to his amendment, which would say that everybody, including judges, would have to go to the Statutory Officers Committee. And I thought, wow, this might actually cause a breakthrough, because that was the problem. Ah, but they thought of another problem. You see, every time you solve the problem, you have to invent a new problem that you have not told anybody about yet so that there is a reason for you not doing it.

The next problem was, 'Ah yes, but, that committee has a majority of people from the government.' Look, I have 10 fingers, but the way my fingers work is Labor, Labor, Labor—that is three—Liberal, Liberal—that is two—Independent—that is one. Now, where is the government majority on that committee? Three out of six ain't more than half when I went to school; but, because Mr Wade uses a different form of accounting to the rest of us, that constitutes a government majority. So, we have now got to the completely bogus reason for not supporting it, that is, three is more than half of six.

So we then advance a whole bunch of argument and, by the way, most of the debate on this very important topic occurs on Leon Byner's program, with me just tuned into it, not with me directly. Oh, no, you could not possibly do that, because it might get somewhere. I said several times, 'Can we please just talk about this ourselves rather than debating this in the media?' 'Oh, well you're not going to nail me down.' Okay, fine. Anyway, we get to the point yesterday where three actually equals four out of six. We took that as a serious proposition.

Can I say, the member for Little Para, in a selfless act of dedication only rivalled by that of Captain Oates, said to me and other members on the government side, 'Look, I want this ICAC up, just like you do and, do you know what, I think I can do something to help. Even though the Hon. Stephen Wade can't count to three, maybe he can count to two.' And we thought it is worth a try. The honourable member did the honourable thing, and the Premier announced publicly that he had done this honourable thing in order to assist the government to persuade Mr Wade that three is not more than half of six, because we were pretty sure we could persuade him that two is not more than half of six, although we were not sure. We made that statement and, goodness me, that was not good enough either.

Why was it not good enough? Because, the government of the day might change its mind and make it three again and, of course, we all know that three is more than half of six, and that would not do. That would not do; we would be back to more than half again because we had three. So, we thought, goodness me, how can we solve this problem? And then we worked it out. We would actually put it in the legislation, in effect, that it is going to be two government, two opposition, two Independents, if there are Independents in both houses and, if not, up to the chambers. As best I can tell, Mr Wade got his abacus out and calculated it, and worked out that that meant that no one had a majority. At that point he announced to Leon Byner's listenership that we probably had an agreement.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: You mean the court of public opinion.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: The court of public opinion, indeed. To say this process has been tortured is the most grotesque understatement I will ever make in my life, but I will say this: in the end—

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Pardon?

The Hon. S.W. Key interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: No, fair enough, I withdraw that last comment. It may not be the most grotesque. Although it has been torturous and although we could have had this thing up and running a long time ago, I say to the Leader of the Opposition quite sincerely that I appreciate, and the government appreciates, that finally we have been able to come to a landing on this point, in spite of all the tortured route to get here and in spite of all the manifestly peculiar (if that is a neutral word) statements by Mr Wade about why we were not here some months ago (usually on the radio over the last few months). The most gobsmacking one, of course, is this mathematical one where, as I said, three is actually more than half of six. I am still grappling with that one but, luckily, that is no longer a pitfall.

What is going to happen now is this. I am trying, if I can, to have ads in the paper this weekend. If it is not this weekend, it will be next weekend. I am about to, when I get out of this place, say to the team organising the preparation of the logistics—the finding of a building, etc.—

Mrs Redmond: Thunderbirds Are Go.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: 'Thunderbirds Are Go. Press the button, folks. Start looking.' I will be very keen to move this thing along at the greatest speed I possibly can, and I am delighted that we have got past this point. Can I also say this for all those wise guys from interstate. Mr So-and-so from Western Australia has read a newspaper article in The Australian about our ICAC which goes into two columns and it is written by that fellow who has not read the bill himself and it says it is secret. He then feels he is in a good position to pontificate upon the detail of our bill. I am sorry, I am not impressed by you; and the chap from New South Wales, who seems to be the font of all knowledge about pretty everything, who goes into print regularly to talk about it.

Then, of course, News Limited were so late on the bus they missed it altogether. The issue about secrecy was dealt with six months ago, 18 months ago: in the last couple of weeks they have attempted to stir up this frenzy of activity about secret, secret, secret. It has been such a secret secret that it has been sitting there in front of him for the last 18 months. What a secret that is. But it is only in the last couple of weeks that they have got agitated about it.

Why have they got agitated about it? I suspect I know why. It is because Mr Peter Campbell came to visit me with some of his clients, who call themselves Free TV, to talk about another matter a while ago and one of Mr Campbell's clients said, 'You had better fix up the secrecy provisions in the ICAC. We're going to do something about that.' I said, 'No, you are not. That bus has gone, sunshine. The dispute between the houses does not concern that bit. Too late. Where have you been for the last 18 months?'

What happened, of course, as a result of that is we had the impartial commentator Mr Campbell in the Sunday Mail on the weekend telling me how unbalanced I am. But I do not act for most of the media outlets in South Australia. I think it would have been helpful if, instead of being described as 'media analyst and expert', he was described as 'lawyer for pretty well every media outlet in South Australia and for every TV station, etc.' That at least then would have put things in some perspective.

Anyway, I am pleased—I am genuinely pleased—that all of that is now behind us and we can go on with this in a very constructive way and get the place set up and established. I am hopeful that in the first quarter of next year we will have this thing functional in some rudimentary way and hopefully by the middle of the year we will have sufficient of the systems up and running and in place for people to feel confident that the ICAC is functional and operational.

Even though it has taken a long time to get here and, as I said, it has been a tortured process, I do sincerely thank, albeit at the last minute, the Leader of the Opposition for accepting the wisdom of the compromise that was offered by Mr Brokenshire in the other place. We are all better off for this and we will go into the Christmas break knowing that South Australia is going to have the ICAC that it wants and the ICAC that it needs, and one that is designed for our requirements and not picked off a shelf somewhere in Sydney or picked off a shelf somewhere in Perth. Remember, those ICACs were designed to deal with an acute crisis brought on by a very clear catastrophic problem with public integrity in those states.

We are not dealing here with a situation where we are having to consider this in a state of emergency. We are able to reflect on this calmly in the context of us putting in place a form of insurance which will guarantee the public that, over time, there will be a watchdog which will report to this parliament and which will be answerable to a parliamentary committee in this place to give people confidence that the public sector in this state is functioning properly.

Mrs REDMOND: I am just bewildered that the Attorney-General suggests that it has taken a long time and a tortured process to get here because they are indeed words that I would use, not because it has taken six months, Attorney, but because it has taken six years. When I was shadow attorney-general, the then leader, Iain Evans, asked me to start looking into this way back, and then in 2007 we announced a policy which was steadfastly refused and refuted by this government for five of the last six years.

It is only in the last 12 months that this government has even agreed to the proposition that this state should have an independent commission against corruption, and I will guarantee you they only did that because their polling said that they needed to do it. Their polling said they needed to do it, so after five years of saying, 'No, no, no, we don't need an independent commission in this state,' their polling said, 'The public really want this and it's a problem for you because the other side have this policy.'

I attended Australia's first anticorruption conference and I remember at that conference they were talking in trillions of dollars as the amount of money that corruption costs communities and economies around the world—trillions of dollars. That is thousands of thousands of millions of dollars that it costs economies around the world. There is no reason on earth to suspect that South Australia is any exception to any other place. There will be corruption particularly as systems get bigger and more complex. The opportunity for people to act corruptly actually increases and it is inevitable, as the 'cartridgegate' scandal showed and as potentially the Burnside council matter showed, except that we are never allowed to find out what the outcome of that particular inquiry was.

At that very first anticorruption conference, Labor premier Morris Iemma made the opening address and he said, 'Any jurisdiction that thinks they don't need one is crazy,' but then that just shows that even he thought this government is crazy because they insisted that we did not need one. We did not need one, we were never going to need one and they resisted it and resisted it until the last 12 months. They were dragged, kicking and screaming, to a concession that, 'Yes, we do need an independent commission against corruption.' As I say, that was something that we initiated six years ago after Iain Evans as then leader asked me as then shadow attorney-general to start work on developing a policy in that regard.

In 2007 we announced our policy. In 2008 we introduced our bill and it was based essentially on the New South Wales model because we thought there was value in trying to learn from the interstate experiences. We looked at various models from around the country and we decided that the New South Wales model had the three essential elements that to us were the base stones of how we would build this ICAC, because there are three different parts.

People tend to concentrate on the fact that there will be investigations, and indeed there will. You may all recall, of course, that premier Rann used to say, 'It's going to be a lawyers' picnic,' but in fact there are not that many lawyers involved in the ICAC process. It is actually largely occupied by investigators, and a number of investigators in interstate ICACs are indeed former police officers, rather than lawyers.

There are not so many lawyers in the ICAC because, upon the successful investigation, if an ICAC decides that a matter is to be prosecuted, that prosecution actually goes off to the DPP or other appropriate authority for prosecution. It is not actually a place where you have a lot of lawyers, but investigations are only one component of what is essentially, as I said, a three-pronged matter.

The second component is that of an education process. It is remarkable to me the number of people who simply do not realise what they are doing is corrupt—for example, the 'cartridgegate' situation in this state. I am sure that although some people acted knowingly in a corrupt way, there were others who did it quite innocently because, after all, if you are doing what they did in a private company that you owned yourself, there is no problem. If they say, 'Look, if you buy these cartridges from me at this price I will give you a flat screen TV', that is perfectly allowable if you are the person who owns the company doing the purchasing. The problem was they did not understand that, as public servants, their behaviour was corrupt.

As I say, I think there are probably public servants involved who simply did not realise that what they were doing was corrupt. There were, no doubt, some who absolutely knew that it was against the rules and that they should not be doing it. There are really vexed questions: what if the flat screen TV had, in fact, been used within the department and put up on the wall for some legitimate use within the department? Would that have been a corrupt action? Indeed, one of the most valuable parts of the anticorruption conference that I attended some years ago was a workshop involving trying to analyse some of these scenarios, which were real-life scenarios, to decide what was a corrupt action and what was not.

I do believe that it is really important for us to teach people about what is corruption. You may recall—I think it was Gordon Nuttall, the Queensland politician—he did not understand that it was corrupt of him to receive $10,000 a month from developers because, after all, he was not using it for his own benefit, he was simply using it to help his children get houses. That shows a striking lack of understanding of what might be corrupt conduct. Nevertheless, it does demonstrate that there is a vast lack of understanding in the community about what can constitute corrupt conduct.

Apart from investigating and educating the public, the third component—which is equally as important although, again, it does not get as much attention—is that of identifying the potential for corrupt conduct. As I said, we have much more complex systems these days and that leads to more potential for corrupt conduct to occur. Once upon a time a local sports organisation was managed with a cheque account that was signed by a couple of members of the committee, and there was a two-signature process on cheques, and that was basically your fail-safe to make sure that one person could not write a cheque for their own benefit and fix up the books. However, as soon as you start to put computer systems in place that one person will have access to, there can be problems with how you keep track and how you make sure that people are not able to corrupt the system for their own benefit.

I served for 28 years on the Stirling hospital board. It is not a government organisation so it is not going to be subject to an ICAC, but from day one of the appointment of a particular financial officer—who had come highly recommended with exceptional references from a company that turned out to be pretty dodgy—he started stealing from that community hospital. It never had any government money; it was a community hospital. We did not discover it for a few years; $450,000 later that community hospital discovered that this guy had been corrupting the system of bookkeeping. He was our chief financial officer. He spent a couple of years in gaol (which is a good thing) but, increasingly, particularly when you have people who may have gambling addictions or the like, there is the impetus to obtain money. When people get a bit desperate they will do things that perhaps they might not do in other circumstances.

So the third and important component of the Independent Commission against Corruption is that we make sure that we have people who are forensically skilled in the accounting processes and all the other processes of government agencies, departments and councils and so on to analyse the processes, see where there could be the potential for corruption, and ensure that that corruption is limited in the potential for it to occur.

Basically, I accept that the government's ICAC Bill includes those three elements and so, to that extent, there is a mutuality in what we have been wanting. However, can I remind you all that when we introduced our bill, because we had modelled it on the New South Wales model of the ICAC, we said, 'Well, okay, we know we will be criticised about how much this is going to cost. So that there can be no criticism of what it is going to cost, let us actually take the New South Wales model and ask how much it costs and we will use that amount.' So, it was $15 million at the time.

We thought, 'Well, no reasonable person could possibly argue that we were not particularly well funding this if we are using the same amount as New South Wales uses, given that they have a very significantly higher population and that theirs has been up and running for nearly 20 years, now.' We thought that no-one could possibly say that is not a sufficient amount, but from day one the government started saying, 'This is going to be not just a lawyers picnic, it is going to cost $30 million to $40 million.' Thirty to forty million dollars was going to be the amount that this ICAC was going to cost.

There was no justification for that figure, given that we based it on the New South Wales model and their much bigger population. We were using the same figure from their annual report as to exactly what it cost, and yet the government kept doubling it and then adding another third on top of it for good measure. So, what do we get when this government introduces its ICAC, dragged, as it was, kicking and screaming? Six million dollars, not even half of what we said in our original proposal, and yet the government says this is going to be more than sufficient. It is just extraordinary that they do these things.

As the Attorney-General said, we have been working on a number of issues that we had with this particular model because there were still some niggling issues that we thought needed to be sorted out. In spite of the fact that the government has been merrily saying that our model did not have any system of parliamentary scrutiny for the appointment that was about to take place of an independent commissioner, the reality was that in clause 90 of the bill we had said precisely that there would be a committee of the parliament which would oversee and, indeed, have an ability to veto the appointment.

Why would you want that to exist? You would want that to exist to ensure that the government made an appropriate appointment. We did not want to involve ourselves in the advertising, the consideration, the selection process. We were never about trying to make sure that we were a part of that process, but we did think it was important for the government and opposition, at least, to agree that it was an appropriate appointment.

Why would you want that? Pardon me if I am a bit cynical about this government but just in the last week we have seen a few questions in this chamber about the appointment of one Mia Handshin. The minister told us in the previous sitting week that Mia Handshin was appointed under section 14B(5)(f) of the Environment Protection Act.

Mr Griffiths interjecting:

Mrs REDMOND: It was out of (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g), I think, and (f) was the paragraph that he selected as the potential appointment provision. When you look at subparagraph (f) what it says is that the appointee must have qualifications and experience in management generally—she said on radio that she did not have any—and qualifications and experience in public sector management. She admitted on radio that she does not have any of those qualifications and that specifically is what the minister said she was appointed under.

She does not have any of the qualifications required and yet the government has merrily appointed her, not just to the board but to chair the board. Why would a government do that? Some unknown person who happens to be a former Labor candidate; one of many former Labor candidates that this government has appointed to particular positions. So, you can understand that this side of the house was somewhat cynical about the intention of the government to appoint someone appropriate as the independent commissioner against corruption.

There were a couple of other things that we were concerned about in relation to this legislation. The Attorney-General reminded me of the issue of the secrecy of the intended commission and he is right, I absolutely recognise the need for a level of protection of people who are accused by people wishing to make a complaint to the commission. It has been obvious in a number of jurisdictions that the ICAC—I will use the term 'ICAC' when I am referring to the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the various other things around the country—has been used as a weapon, often a political weapon, to damage people's reputations and, indeed, to go in and report someone to the ICAC, it might be on a completely nebulous allegation, but then to come and do media outside saying 'I have just reported this person to the ICAC.'

We all recognise that considerable damage can be done to a person's reputation and often once done it cannot be corrected, so I absolutely accept and endorse the concept that we need to protect the reputations of people and give sufficient protection. There are a number of things you can do. I spoke to one of the commissioners in New South Wales—I do not think he is a commissioner any longer—and he said he always made it his habit to go to the person who put in the complaint and say to them, 'If you breathe one word about having made this complaint, be aware that I will investigate you just as thoroughly as I am investigating the person you are asking me to investigate.'

There are various mechanisms but that turned out to be a pretty effective one according to him because people actually do not want themselves investigated but, equally, we have to make sure that we do not allow anyone to use it as a weapon in unjustifiable circumstances. Even where they think they have a legitimate complaint, it can nevertheless be a completely erroneous complaint, and someone's reputation could be trashed, and we need to do what we can to protect against that. Balanced against that, however, is the need that the public has confidence in the accountability and transparency of the process. So we believe a level of scrutiny will always be necessary and desirable.

For that reason, we have taken the view that, rather than having a blanket ban on public hearings or, indeed, a blanket requirement for public hearings, we should actually leave it up to the commission. I can envisage that there would certainly be cases where something might start out as a very private hearing until some sort of prima facie case is established, at which point it might become a public hearing. I think that that is an absolutely reasonable thing. In Western Australia they had a blanket ban on public hearings and, in fact, they have moved away from that. I think that they were the only jurisdiction that had that particular blanket ban, but they moved away from it for the good reason that you need to have confidence, and that equally with the need to protect the reputations of people, you balance the need for the public to be able to see what is going on so that it is not some sort of star chamber conducted totally out of the public eye and without the right of the public to know what is going on. So there is that need to balance that particular issue.

The other aspect where we still have something of an issue, but we have given ground on it at the moment, is that of the criminal onus of responsibility. The criminal level is, we believe, too high. We believe that the definition of corrupt conduct should be the internationally accepted definition rather than the definition provided by the government here which requires, basically, the criminal onus. I am sure that we are all aware of situations, whether we have observed them in local councils, departments or agencies—all sorts of places—where situations can arise where people think that is a pretty dodgy practice but it may well not be a criminal activity—and unless it is a criminal activity it is not going to be caught by this.

We believe that it should be a slightly broader definition because there are situations where people play favourites. If you are the owner of a business, once again, you are perfectly entitled to play favourites and to give your contracts to your best friend or your next door neighbour or whomever you want, but if you are a government department or a government agency or a local council you are acting on behalf of the public, and you do not have that same right to do those things at your discretion. Yet, it is obvious to me, from casual observation, that there is a lot of favouritism played in terms of letting of contracts and creating lists of who are going to be the favoured tenderers and so on, and that that is one of the issues that we need to get at.

We have the independence of the commission, we have the secrecy of the hearings, and we have the issue of this onus that we have to reach of criminal activity being required. Why do we give way on the secrecy and the criminal onus but not on the independence of the commission? It is very simply this: that those other two, the criminal onus and the secrecy provisions, can actually be checked and corrected by us in government, and we hope to be in government in little over 15 months.

The reason that the appointment of the commissioner was such a die-in-the-ditch issue was that, once that commissioner is appointed, we are stuck with that commissioner potentially for the next 10 years. So, if it is a bad appointment—and I have no reason to believe that it will be a bad appointment, but nor do I have any confidence in this government, given the Mia Handshin appointment to the EPA—then I actually think we need the chance to say, 'No, that is not an acceptable appointment.'

From my point of view, there is an absolutely rational decision about why we would say, 'Okay, those two matters can go through to the keeper; we can correct those in office, but we are not prepared to give complete ground—we have given up a bit, but we are not prepared to give ground.' Indeed, I thank the government for finally agreeing not just to have an ICAC but that the ICAC appointment needed some level of parliamentary scrutiny. I will finish on that note.

We believe that it is not a perfect model, as so many things are never perfect, but we are prepared to accept that the government has introduced an ICAC. We do not think they have necessarily funded it at a rate commensurate with what their suggestions about our ICAC would have warranted, on their own commitment, but we do believe that it is essential for this state to have an ICAC. We have argued for it for six years. As I say, I am bewildered that the Attorney-General could baulk at the fact that there was six months of trying to negotiate this last bit of the outcome, but I am happy that we have it.

I am happy that by the end of the year, therefore, the Attorney-General can put in place the advertisements and so on to start the process of actually having an ICAC in this state, to bring us in line with every other jurisdiction in the country.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: On the question of how an ICAC commissioner should be appointed and the story of how the Hon. E.P. Mullighan came to be appointed to conduct an inquiry into sexual abuse of wards of the state in 2004, the Hon. S.G. Wade, who was not a member of parliament at the relevant time and was not at the celebrated 2004 meeting, regaled the other place last night with a story to rival The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Pugachev's claim to be Tsar Peter III.

In 2004, the Rann Labor government decided to appoint a commissioner to investigate sexual abuse of wards of the state. Many people were claiming to have been abused when they were wards of the state. Growing out of these claims, some of which were verifiably true, was the claim that there was a paedophile conspiracy at the highest level in Adelaide society. The cabinet canvassed appointing Justice Mullighan of the South Australian Supreme Court. He was still a serving judge but was due to retire in two or three years' time.

Justice Mullighan agreed to accept the appointment but stipulated that he would like the agreement of the opposition to his taking it. I do not know exactly why he stipulated this, but common sense tells me that opposition consent might inoculate him against some of the conspiracy theorists of the time, including one who was on Graham Archer's payroll at Today Tonight Adelaide.

The Liberal opposition was informed of Justice Mullighan's candidature. The Liberal opposition agreed to come to a meeting in the large boardroom of my ministerial office to discuss this with me and the then minister for families and communities, now the Premier. The opposition members attending were the Hon. R.D. Lawson, then my shadow, and the member for Heysen. I asked the Hon. R.D. Lawson what the parliamentary Liberal Party's position was. He replied that the matter had been discussed in the party room and some members of the party room—not him—were concerned that Ted Mullighan had shared chambers with Roma Mitchell, formerly a QC, Supreme Court justice and state governor. I asked what the problem with that was and the Hon. R.D. Lawson replied that we all knew what she was. This exchange lay dormant for eight years.

In debate on this bill in the house on 18 October, prompted by the Leader of the Opposition (the member for Heysen) making what transpired at that meeting a reason for not supporting the government's proposed method of appointing the ICAC commissioner and, indeed, making that meeting a reason for impugning the integrity of the Premier, I told the house what else happened at the meeting. The Leader of the Opposition interjected, and I quote:

I agree it was said, but it wasn't the principal reason.

The word 'reason' in that interjection means the reason the parliamentary Liberal Party did not want Mullighan appointed. The Leader of the Opposition further interjected, and I quote:

I said it was a reason that was mentioned at the meeting.

A reason for the Liberal Party's opposition to Mr Mullighan, according to the Leader of the Opposition, but not the principal reason. I ask members to note that the Leader of the Opposition, though she claimed then and subsequently to have notes of the meeting, does not attribute the imputation about Dame Roma Mitchell to me or argue that I was giving it as a reason for not appointing Mr Mullighan. Plainly, as the attorney-general of the day, I was supporting Mr Mullighan's candidature.

The Leader of the Opposition was then interviewed by Matthew Abraham and David Bevan on their breakfast program on ABC 891 on 24 October. Explaining her role in this meeting, the Leader of the Opposition confirmed that the imputation was made, but she said it was not the principal reason for the Liberal Party's opposition to Mr Mullighan's appointment and, in any case, she was only a new frontbencher. The principal reason, she explained, is that the Liberal Party wanted someone from interstate. So it was left for a month. Last night, in another place, in a post-prandial contribution, the Hon. S.G. Wade told the chamber, and I quote:

During the course of the discussion, the attorney-general said words to the effect, 'What if someone claims they were abused by Roma Mitchell?' Lawson responded by saying...'This is why we need an outside commissioner. Mullighan would have a conflict of interest if such an allegation was made because he has had a longstanding professional and personal relationship with her. They once shared chambers. He was her counsel assisting in the Salisbury Royal Commission.'

The Liberal Party returns to two of its favourite conspiracy theories: the high-level paedophile conspiracy conflated with the Harold Salisbury dismissal conspiracy. The remarkable thing is that, 34 days after the Abraham and Bevan interview and 40 days after the Leader of the Opposition's admission in the house, the raising of Roma Mitchell at the 2004 meeting is now transferred from the mouth of the Hon. R.D. Lawson to my mouth.

It is as if the Leader of the Opposition had, like Our Lord, retreated to the wilderness for 40 days to fast and pray, to commune with the animals and come up with an explanation for her admissions in the house and on ABC 891 and also to dig her old factional enemy, Robert Lawson, out of the pit into which she had cast him by her admissions.

I recall a meeting of the Statutory Officers Committee—now highly relevant to these deliberations—to hear from the then acting ombudsman, Mr Ken MacPherson. I think it might have been Ken's appearance before the Statutory Officers Committee to answer questions about his proposed appointment as acting ombudsman.

Mr Pengilly: Of blessed memory.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Of blessed memory. It was attended by the member for Heysen and the Hon. R.D. Lawson. The member for Heysen asked Mr MacPherson a series of hostile questions on the barely disguised assumption that he was an ALP stooge. The questioning became so angry that the member for Heysen rose in her place and flounced out of the meeting. It is all recorded on Hansard. The Hon. R.D. Lawson rolled his eyes extravagantly, shook his head, made a quip that I shall not repeat and brought us back to the business at hand.

I shall leave it to the common sense of my listeners whether, counterintuitive as I may be, I would raise at a meeting to discuss Justice Mullighan's appointment as commissioner the irrelevant and fanciful possibility that someone would raise an allegation against a woman then dead for four years who had a stellar career as Queens Counsel, Supreme Court judge and viceregal representative. It was me who was proposing Mr Mullighan's appointment and the Hon. R.D. Lawson who was seeking to veto it. The Hon. R.D. Lawson protesteth too much, and the Leader of the Opposition should remember the British version of the police caution: you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.

Ms CHAPMAN: I join with others in welcoming the amendments from the other place and indicate my support of them. Given the rant that we have just experienced from the former attorney-general, I am compelled to make a contribution which will outline the whole of the material which has been issued by our leader. I will, of course, race to her defence in confirming her position on this matter. She said that in debate on the ICAC Bill on 16 October 2012 the member for Croydon claimed that, at a meeting between representatives of the government and the opposition regarding the proposal to appoint Ted Mulligan as commissioner to inquire into the abuse of children in state care, the then shadow attorney-general, the Hon. R.D. Lawson said:

...we've have had a discussion about this in the Liberal Party room and some members, not named, have made the point...that Ted Mullighan once shared chambers with Roma Mitchell.

The member for Croydon then claimed:

...it became clear that you could not have someone who had shared chambers with Roma Mitchell be a commissioner for an inquiry into the sexual abuse of wards of the state because someone in the Liberal Party room had raised questions about Roma Mitchell's sexuality.

The member for Croydon, then attorney-general, went on to claim:

That was the principal reason that the Liberal Party would not accept Ted Mullighan as the commissioner of that inquiry.

These claims by the Hon. M.J. Atkinson, now just the lowly member for Croydon, are false. These claims have now been interpreted by Mr Abraham on the ABC on 24 October 2012 to mean that the Liberal Party did not initially support Mr Mullighan's appointment because, to use Mr Abraham's words:

...the Liberal Party had a problem with somebody sharing chambers with a lesbian investigating child sex abuse...

That rather far-fetched interpretation is also misconceived. As our leader has previously stated on a number of occasions, the sole reason the Liberal Party did not initially support Mr Mullighan's appointment was the belief that the inquiry should be conducted by someone from outside of the state. The Liberal Party wanted a commissioner who would be seen, especially by the victims, as a person who was completely independent of South Australia. That was our only reason. Our objection was not to Mr Mulligan the person. The fact that Mr Mullighan had shared chambers with the late Roman Mitchell was never raised in the Liberal party room, nor, contrary to the member for Croydon's claim, did the Hon. R.D. Lawson ever say that someone in the party room referred to that fact.

The claim of the member for Croydon that the sharing of legal chambers was the principal ground of the party's objection is an invention on his part. The fact that Mr Mullighan and Roma Mitchell had once shared chambers arose in the meeting attended by Liberal leader Mr Rob Kerin (the former member for Frome), our current Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. R.D. Lawson, then minister Jay Weatherill, and attorney-general Atkinson. During the course of the discussion the attorney-general said words to the effect that:

What if someone claims they were abused by Roma Mitchell?

The Hon. R.D. Lawson responded by saying words to the effect that, quote:

This is why we need an outside commissioner. [Mr] Mullighan would have a conflict of interest if such an allegation were made because he has had a long-standing professional and personal relationship with her. They once shared chambers. He was her counsel-assisting in the Salisbury Royal Commission.

On 18 October our now leader said, 'I agree it was said, but it wasn't the principal reason.' Our leader was agreeing that it had been said at that meeting that Mr Mullighan and Ms Mitchell had shared chambers. She said:

I was not agreeing to the proposition that it was said by Hon. R.D. Lawson or anyone else that you 'couldn't have someone who shared chambers with Roma Mitchell [as] commissioner...because someone in the Liberal Party room had raised questions about Roma Mitchell's sexuality'.

Our leader rejects the member for Croydon's attempt to verbal her by suggesting that her statement, 'I agree it was said,' had extended beyond her agreement that it had been said that the two people under discussion had shared chambers. Further, our leader had a recent discussion with the Hon. R.D. Lawson about the matter and what she had just said accords with his recollection.

The Hon. R.D. Lawson says that he had the highest personal regard for Mr Ted Mullighan and they shared legal chambers before Mr Mullighan was appointed to the Supreme Court. Likewise, he enjoyed a good professional relationship with Roma Mitchell. Mr Lawson strongly rejects the member for Croydon's allegation that he ever made any insinuation about her personal life or about Mr Mullighan's capacity to undertake the inquiry.

So, let us ensure that this information is on the record and clear in this part of the debate. I am very disappointed that the member for Croydon would come in and attempt to extract, even from yesterday's contribution in another place, selective excerpts for the purposes of pursuing what has been, I think, an unconscionable contribution to this debate about the history of this matter. I hope that it is laid to rest and that more energy by him, and others on that side, is put to the appointment of an ICAC commissioner so that we might progress the attention, detection and prosecution of corruption which surely resides in this state.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: I think we have all had a bit of a go at this today so I will not go for too long on this other than to say I do thank all members for their contributions. Can I say, though, that, having listened again to the Leader of the Opposition, she in particular seems to be focused on the ghosts of Parliament House. There was quite a bit of time spent addressing issues about the former member for Ramsay, who has not been here for quite some time and, as best I can tell, he is not particularly worried about what is said about him in here presently, and I do not think he was in the past. I do not know why we focused on that. The fact is that the government is working hard in the present and planning for the future. The opposition is existing in the present and raking over the coals of the past, and that is really a bit sad, I think.

The other thing, just to make an observation, is that up until the volte-face today (for which I am grateful) the opposition appeared to be determined to make sure that this bill was either defeated or perpetually deadlocked so that they could then bash the government out for not having passed the bill. That was the strategy. That was the substitute for them having a policy about pretty well anything. Anyway, I am glad that is finished. Therefore, I move:

That the House of Assembly no longer insist on its disagreement to amendments Nos 3, 24, 39, 40, 42 and 43.

Motion carried.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: As to amendment No. 6, I move:

That the House of Assembly agree to the alternative amendment No. 6 and agree to the consequential amendment.

Motion carried.