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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-09-28 Daily Xml
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Question Time

INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:29): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Leader of the Government a question about an independent commission against corruption.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The ALP has long argued that South Australia does not need an independent commission against corruption because we already have, among others, the Police Complaints Authority. The Ombudsman does not have the powers to investigate complaints against police of alleged corruption; the Police Complaints Authority refers those matters to SAPOL's Anti-Corruption Branch.

Eminent lawyers, including corruption fighters in South Australia and other states, including former Labor premiers Peter Beattie and Bob Carr, and also independent anti-crime commissioners in states which have them, all urge the establishment of an ICAC in South Australia. Even the State Coroner says that the secrecy provisions in the Police Complaints Act are too restrictive. They say that the Police Complaints Authority should be disbanded and replaced with a more transparent system of investigation, through an independent commission. One of the criticisms is that complaints of corruption against police eventuate (via the Police Complaints Authority) in the Anti-Corruption Branch, which effectively is police investigating police.

The Leader of the Government may have heard a fascinating midnight phone call made by the former attorney-general Michael Atkinson to FIVEaathis week, in which he lambasted the Legal Practitioners Conduct Board. He said that having lawyers investigate the conduct of lawyers is like Caesar judging Caesar. My question is: now that even the previous attorney-general sees the folly of Caesar judging Caesar, when will the government scrap the internal Police Anti-Corruption Branch and the involvement of the Police Complaints Authority in complaints of alleged police corruption and replace them with an independent commission against corruption?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (14:31): The first point I make is that the Police Complaints Authority is headed by a lawyer, as I understand it, and not headed by a member of the police force. It is an independent body that does it but, in relation to the broader issue of the roles of these authorities, the leader would be well aware that the Attorney-General is currently investigating such arrangements, and I am sure we will have a report fairly soon.

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