Retired judges have criticised the Morrison government’s broken promise on the federal anti-corruption commission as a “massive policy failure”, saying the Coalition’s explanation for walking away from the pledge was “spurious”.
The Coalition is under pressure over its failure to introduce legislation establishing its proposed anti-corruption commission, despite promising to do so prior to the last election.
“The true reason for this massive policy failure is that, with a litany of scandalous rorts identified in audit reports, this government wishes to avoid proper scrutiny and being held publicly accountable,”The government’s proposed model, which was released as an exposure draft, was widely condemned as weak, ineffective and a “protection racket” for politicians.
It had no ability to conduct public hearings for government corruption, despite allowing such hearings for law enforcement matters, and sets a near-impossibly high bar for investigations to commence. Professor Anne Twomey, one of the nation’s leading legal minds, described it as a “shamefully inadequate system, which appears designed to protect the corrupt from investigation”.
Whealy said the Coalition’s rationale for its broken promise was “quite spurious” and described it as a “massive policy failure”.
“Simply put, it raises a serious question: can we trust the Coalition to honour any of its promises and to do so within an honest framework?”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/15/massive-policy-failure-retired-judges-blast-morrisons-broken-promise-on-federal-icac?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
