Integrity Commission workload mounts

Adam Holmes |  Examiner | 29 October 2021  

THE number of complaints received by Tasmania’s Integrity Commission increased again in the past 12 months, but the amount of investigations it launched and assessments it concluded decreased.

The Integrity Commission – Tasmania’s equivalent anti-corruption watchdog released its annual report on Thursday detailing its work for the past 12 months.

It received 171 complaints including 64 regarding the state service, 55 against Tasmania Police, 26 for local government and five for tertiary education providers, 126 of which were dismissed.

The figures represented the third successive annual increase in complaints, but whereas it started 11 investigations in 2018-19, the past 12 months only saw two.

The Integrity Commission annual report outlined that the complexity of misconduct investigations could vary widely, and matters that require multiple witnesses can “absorb the commission’s resources”.

“We take great care to ensure procedural fairness obligations are met, and this can greatly lengthen the investigative process,” it reads.

In the past three years, the commission has issued 165 coercive notices, but no search warrants or surveillance device warrants, and only once used its power to enter a premises.

The powers varied widely to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, which on Thursday publicly aired corruption allegations obtained via the phone-tapping of former premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb said the Integrity Commission could never “deliver the same outcomes” in terms of holding public officials to account compared with ICAC.

“It isn’t structurally empowered in the same way as the NSW ICAC. It should be,” she said.

“We should be able to feel confident that an anti-corruption body in this state can identify, investigate, act on and, in a public way, undertake investigations into matters that might be arising in this state – and that we could see that kind of accountability brought to bear.”

The Integrity Commission cannot investigate matters on its own volition and must wait for a complaint to be made, it has not held a public hearing and, earlier this year, found it did not have the power to investigate matters relating to election candidates.

It also carries out “misconduct prevention” work by developing educational resources for the public sector with 35 educational sessions provided to 633 public employees.

“Essentially, we are helping our public sector agencies to identify and address their individual and specific misconduct risks,” the annual report states.

See more of Meg’s recent media.