Posted 20/9/07
Article from: Herald Sun, September 20, 2007 12:00am
VICTORIA urgently needs an independent broad-based anti-corruption commission, Ted Baillieu writes.
Since coming to power in 1999, Labor has consistently refused to establish an independent corruption watchdog.
This is despite Premier John Brumby's original position when Opposition leader.
"I concur with your sentiments regarding the need for a royal commission into police", he wrote to the Australian Civil Liberties Union.
"Labor has repeatedly called for a royal commission into police corruption and will continue to do so in the coming session of Parliament and beyond."
Despite overwhelming evidence of public sector and police corruption and the establishment of independent anti-corruption commissions in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia, the Brumby Government is refuses to establish a similar body.
More than 20 former judges, senior police officers, anti-corruption experts and leading legal and public administration figures have called for the establishment of either a royal commission into corruption or an independent anti-corruption commission in Victoria.
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon called for the establishment of an independent crime commission in 2004. The Government's own Ceja anti-corruption task force recommended a permanent anti-corruption commission.
A poll of Victorians found that 81 per cent of Victorian voters supported a royal commission or independent body to investigate allegations of police corruption.
So, why is Premier Brumby so resistant to a broad commission into police and public sector misconduct and corruption? The answer lies partly in the significant body of issues that have failed to be fully investigated in Victoria.
During the last election, the Victorian Labor Party entered into a secret deal with the Victorian Police Association and its secretary.
The deal ensured political support from the Police Association in the lead-up to the state election in exchange for various employment, financial and legal defence undertakings from a Labor government. The exact circumstances and full details of that deal have never been fully revealed or investigated.
There is serious evidence of corruption and a lack of adequate investigation into some aspects of public tendering processes in Victoria, as well as the conduct of some local councils.
There is also the question of the integrity of police records and databases and the need to investigate drug-related corruption in the Victorian police force.
But even more alarming are allegations that senior officers of the Victoria Police have not only been party to underworld crime and corruption, but that they have been linked to gangland killings in this state. For years, both the Victorian Government and police command have denied such links. Last week, they were forced to finally admit that the community's worst fears were in fact a reality.
The Brumby Government's response is a series of increasingly contorted rationales.
A number of alphabet-soup titled agencies have been established or empowered in an ad hoc fashion to try to plug obvious failures in the anti-corruption regime.
There are allegations the Police Association has frustrated internal police investigations into its members.
Public confidence has been shaken in Victoria by continued revelations of corruption and the failure of the Brumby Government to respond effectively. The Victorian public are entitled to confidence and full transparency in the integrity of their police force and public sector.
A government that fails to act responsibly in combating corruption in all sectors of public life undermines the very heart of good governance.
TED BAILLIEU is leader of the Victorian Opposition