Corruption in politics is a big issue for Australian voters this federal election.

Over 10% of respondents to The Conversation’s #SetTheAgenda poll said they wanted candidates to be talking about integrity, corruption and a federal independent commission against corruption (or ICAC) this election campaign.

One voter asked us: “Will they implement a national anti-corruption commission (with teeth!) that can investigate retrospectively?”

Research from Griffith University and Transparency International Australia found 67% of Australians surveyed supported the idea of a federal anti-corruption commission.

So we asked five experts to analyse and grade the major parties’ policies on the issue of a federal ICAC.

Here are their detailed responses:

AJ Brown

Coalition

The Coalition’s draft Commonwealth Integrity Commission Bill was released publicly in November 2020 but never introduced.

It would risk seeing many genuine anti-corruption concerns swept under the carpet, by being mostly limited to criminal investigations, with no direct accessibility to the public or whistleblowers, and not having the full powers of a royal commission available when needed (contrary to government claims). For example, no facility for public hearings in respect of most of its jurisdiction.

Despite some other positive steps, like increased jurisdiction and funding for the existing Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, the Coalition plan has failed to engage with the opportunity to develop solutions that would produce either a workable or a best practice model, despite two large public consultation efforts over the past three years.

This unfortunately has also now undermined public confidence in whatever emerges from the process – if anything ever does, given the prime minister’s indications a third Morrison government would not be interested in any new solutions or deviations from the draft bill, and would only introduce legislation in that form and if the opposition first backed it.

Labor

Labor was instrumental in finally cementing a political consensus that reform is needed, by first committing to a national integrity commission in January 2018. The design principles it announced then remain sound from a policy perspective, in so far as they go.

Labor is on record as voting in the Senate in support of the strong and fully developed National Integrity Commission Bill 2019 (previously National Integrity Commission Bills 2010, 2018, now Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill 2020) introduced over the years by the Australian Greens and Independents Cathy McGowan, Dr Helen Haines and Senator Rex Patrick.

However, Labor’s own principles so far remain based on copying one or two of the better state anti-corruption agencies when it gets into government. Larger, more detailed thinking is needed about the roles a lead national anti-corruption agency needs to fulfil, as well as better ways to fulfil them, including on issues of fairness, reputation, corruption prevention and whistleblower protection.

In 2018 Labor also originally under-costed what was required, later committing in 2019 to match or exceed any Coalition spend.

Labor goes into the 2022 election promising to pass legislation for its national integrity commission before the end of 2022. But, unless it produces more detail, it faces a challenge to meet this deadline, within the short political window any new government has to secure quality integrity reforms before its appetite starts to erode.