5 October, 2017
Suppliers and contractors for federal public sector could be affected
What you need to know
A recent Senate Committee report recommends that the Federal Government consider establishing a national integrity commission to combat bribery and corruption in the public sector.
The report highlights the complexity of the current framework which involves a confusing multiplicity of federal agencies with anti-corruption responsibilities.
The Committee concluded that the current federal multiagency anti-corruption framework needs to be more coherent, comprehensible and accessible.
Private sector organisations that do business with the public sector need to implement and maintain rigorous anti-bribery and corruption measures to ensure they are not drawn into damaging investigations of public officials' misconduct.
National anti-corruption framework under scrutiny
Anti-corruption investigation and enforcement are important to the Australian economy because companies need to be confident that their business will not be affected by corruption when they deal with the public sector.
For years, State anti-corruption commissions in Australia have been dealing with serious public sector corruption, and there has been much controversy about:
- whether they should have the power to hold public hearings;
- whether and what accountability and oversight mechanisms should be put in place to ensure they do not misuse or over reach their powers;
- how widely "corruption" should be defined (and therefore what should be the extent of each agency's jurisdiction);
- whether such agencies should have the power to investigate the conduct of private individuals or entities who seek to corrupt public officials; and
- what powers such agencies should be given.
Opinions differ on whether a similar agency is needed at the federal level. Up to now, the Commonwealth has adopted a multi-agency approach, whereby a number of agencies or office holders have specific, and largely distinct, roles in relation to combatting corruption. However, the perception of corruption in Australia's public sector appears to be increasing, as reflected by Australia's declining ranking in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
On 13 September 2017, a Senate Committee report recommended that the federal government consider creating a National Integrity Commission in the form of an umbrella agency to coordinate anti-corruption investigations by existing agencies.
The report highlights the complexity of the current anti-corruption framework and concludes that the current federal multiagency anti-corruption framework needs to be more coherent, comprehensible and accessible.
The Committee did not question that individual agencies are already successfully addressing integrity and corruption matters within their jurisdictions.
The Committee reviewed the different structures of the State anti-corruption commissions, but did not reach a conclusion on important issues such as whether any National Integrity Commission should have the power to hold public hearings, or to investigate the conduct of private individuals or entities who seek to corrupt public officials.
While the government has previously said it does not support the establishment of a National Integrity Commission, the minor parties represented on the committee were in favour of doing so.
The Committee said the Senate should wait for research due to be completed in March 2019 before reviewing the matter again. In the meantime, we expect that there will be a push to strengthen other aspects of Australia's anti-bribery and corruption laws, beginning with a Senate Committee report into Australia's foreign bribery laws due to be released by 7 December 2017.
For further information, please contact:
Angus Ross, Partner, Ashurst
angus.ross@ashurst.com
