Despite an enthusiastic front-page in our national broadsheet, there will never be a Commonwealth Anti-Corruption Commission or Ethics Squad or whatever you like to call it.
Never.
We don't normally make predictions because they are strongly influenced by our prejudices. I could never live with myself tipping against Essendon, even in this euphemistically described "rebuilding" year.
One call I did make that the federal election would be very close, with John Howard representing a very good value bet ended up being vindicated even though he lost and lost his own seat. The election turned out to be extremely close as PM Kevin Rudd has been reminding his gloating troops recently.
Despite the rewriting of history that went on, the Liberal party remains ten seats away from victory.
And that's why there won't be any such Commission.
They are electoral poison for any government. Ask Nick Greiner who introduced the first. And then lost his job after it utterly falsely found him guilty of corruption. A court later found them to be utterly wrong. In short they are a useless menace.
That's why John Howard didn't create one. It's why Kevin Rudd never will.
HIGH PROFILE // LOW YIELD
There's plenty of other good reasons aside from that powerful pragmatic one why such standing public inquiries like ICAC ought not be introduced and indeed should be scrapped wherever they exist.
They aren't effective in combating corruption, merely brilliant at generating headlines as they publicly dredge through private phone calls and emails in an attempt to humiliate and destroy targets who it seems only very rarely get actually charged with breaches of the law.
They generally employ armies of expensive lawyers not the far more cost-effective and experienced Police investigators who are trained in detecting and investigating crime.
There are very strict laws prohibiting corruption in the public sector in every jurisdiction in the nation. And reasonably well resourced state and federal police forces that love nothing better than taking high-profile scalps that get the investigators' names in the paper. That's how they get promoted.
Consider the example of Socialist Left politician Dr Andrew Theophanous, pinged for taking thousands of dollars for helping people with their immigration cases. He was accused by an informant. The predecessor of the Crime Commission investigated, wired up a witness, obtained proof of some dreadful dealings, charged and prosecuted him. He lost his preselection and his seat in parliament, went to jail and lost millions of dollars in superannuation entitlement.
Would a standing Royal Commission, with hearings conducted in public have detected him earlier or caused a worse outcome for him?
Almost certainly not.
Few dispute the ugliness of the allegations against him and equally few say he got off lightly. He was punished very severely indeed.
WINDOW DRESSING IS NOT NEEDED FOR ONE OF THE CLEANEST PUBLIC SECTORS IN THE WORLD
There is corruption in the Australian public sector. But it's very limited. International observers Transparency International says so. We have one of the cleanest public sectors in the world. It's never been easier to detect, using technology that can record conversations from long distances, over telephones, via email or whatever. A public servant taking bungs in this country is both very brave and very stupid.
A Star Chamber of the kind demanded by journalists and pious folk from the ICAC/CJC industry would do little to improve what is already an enviable standard of ethics in the Australian public sector.
And it would do much - as it has in NSW and WA - to diminish public confidence in government while rooting out little that rises to a criminal standard of misconduct. And just as much to make serving the public either in the bureaucracy or in elective office considerably uglier that it need be and tougher than it already is.
John Faulkner might say he's considering proposals for a Commonwealth ICAC. But he's very unlikely to be doing anything more than fobbing off journalists who crave its easy copy and cheap headlines. The cost of all that is much greater than the many tens of millions a Commonwealth ICAC would directly cost. Public confidence in our system of government and those who serve them is precious and fragile.
Superficially attractive anti-corruption "watchdogs" are a menace not just to bung-taking bureaucrats or paid-off politicians but to all of us. Every dollar spent on their usually fruitless show-trials is a dollar taken from funding that ought go to the Police and prosecutors to keep doing what they clearly already do very well already in this country, maintain law and order for good of our Commonwealth.
Game on.
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