Governing with Integrity: IBAC Commissioner Robert Redlich presents Sir John Barry Memorial Lecture in Criminology
by Sarah Hall
Public trust in government in Australia is at an all-time low.
In the last 10 years, since 2012, Australia has fallen from 7th to 18th place in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, tying with Hungary in a race to the bottom for most points dropped over the period.
Still from recording of John Barry Memorial Lecture in Criminology, courtesy of Basil Matta, University of Melbourne.
In the lead-up to the forthcoming Victorian State election, both major parties have been involved in corruption scandals and integrity has become, at every level of government, a major electoral issue. Premier Daniel Andrews admitted he was aware of the ‘red shirts rort’, in which Labor politicians were found to have put $388,000 of public money towards the 2014 election campaign. State Liberal leader Matthew Guy, recovering from his 2017 ‘lobster with a mobster’, had his then Chief of Staff, Mitch Caitlin, quit this August, after it was exposed that he asked a Liberal party donor to make a $100,000 payment to his personal company. Pork-barrelling and other forms of ‘soft’ corruption continue to abound within government, and within public institutions.
There are structural factors making Australian governments vulnerable to soft corruption, which have led to this erosion of public trust. These were the highly topical subjects of the Honourable Robert Redlich AM, KC’s 2022 John Barry Memorial Lecture in Criminology in Old Arts on Thursday, ‘Governing with Integrity’. Throughout the lecture, Redlich provided his insights into the mechanisms of executive government that endanger it, rendering it increasingly vulnerable to corruptibility.
As Commissioner at Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti- Corruption Commission (IBAC) since January 2018 - having previously served as a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria for 15 years, as a member of the Victorian Bar for 30, and as Chairman of the Victorian Bar Council - Redlich offered a uniquely powerful perspective on the mechanisms of soft and hard corruption.
“It’s been over four decades now that, both at a national and state level throughout Australia, there has been an ongoing redistribution of power and influence within the executive government,” he said in the opening lines of his address.
Redlich went on to describe in detail the degradation of four interrelated pillars of government, throughout which power is distributed, which has led to this increasing incidence of corrupt behaviour.
The erosion of four government pillars that has lead to corruption
Redlich named these four pillars as: the concentration of decision-making around the leader; the reduction in authority and responsibility of ministers for government decisions; the increasing sphere of influence of ministerial advisors; and the diminishing capacity of departmental staff to provide ‘frank and fearless’ advice.
“Extraordinary resources have been built up around the leaders of government,” he noted.
This has extended their power and influence and the concentration of governance, which has eroded transparency and accountability, and thus integrity. By way of example, Redlich described the situation in Victoria, where the number of staff in the Premier’s office has increased from 20 in 2011 to 90 today. Quoting political commentator John Faine, he described the alarming situation in which the Andrews government has centralised governance even more than in Jeff Kennett’s premiership some twenty years ago, a time when staff jokingly referred to ministers as ‘warm-up props’ to the dominant Premier.
The West Australian Inc Royal Commission said, and Redlich quoted, that public trust is an ideal that “fallible people will not and perhaps cannot fully meet”. This reality necessitates the imposition of safeguards against the misuse and abuse of judicial and executive power, like the anti-corruption commissions which have cropped up around the country, including the new National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) which will be implemented by the end of the year.
The roles and limitations of anti-corruption commissions
In his lecture, Commissioner Redlich examined the roles and limitations of integrity agencies around the country, including IBAC, in overseeing soft corruption in Australia. As Commissioner, he has been outspoken about IBAC’s constraints.
“IBAC’s jurisdiction and some other interstate commissions jurisdiction is confined to investigate behaviours only where there are reasonable grounds to suspect a crime has been committed,” he said.
“You’ll immediately appreciate [...] that if the criminal law is not an appropriate or adequate vehicle to address soft corruption, there is a powerful limitation in play when IBAC’s jurisdiction depends upon satisfaction that there is a relevant crime that should be investigated.”
Commissioner Redlich would like to see the scope of the IBAC expanded to be able to investigate offences that may not be strictly criminal, like pork barrelling, which constitutes corruption according to NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, or ICAC.
Grey or soft corruption is characterised by questionable, unethical behaviour rather than criminal conduct, and IBAC’s inability to investigate it has been criticised as a weakness ofthe agency.
Despite their shortcomings, anti-corruption commissions serve an important role in addressing Australia’s crisis of integrity, by investigating and attempting to prevent corruption in all institutions of the state. For Redlich, governing with integrity requires a restoration of public trust:
“The opaque and unaccountable culture that has evolved over decades can only now be remedied by reforms that restore rigorous adherence to the principles of the Westminster system, compliance with processes and ethical standards that meet the public interest, and ensuring transparency and accountability in the work of the entirety of the executive government.”
Renewed interest by the public in integrity issues, said Redlich, could lead to a reversal of these frightening trends. A reawakening of public demand that elected public officials uphold the values of integrity, in good faith with their constituents, should provide us with some hope.
The success of so-called ‘teal’ independents in the recent federal election, who ran partly on a platform of establishing a federal anti-corruption commission, is one example of how governing with integrity has become an increasing issue of public and political concern.
At the end of the Commissioner’s talk in the Public Lecture Theatre in Old Arts, Dr Diana Johns, Chair of Criminology at the University of Melbourne, stood up to thank him. She summarised his speech as an examination of “the pathologies of hierarchy” —of political power— and the way they subvert, diminish and undermine the principles of integrity that we hold so dearly.
But, first, she shook his hand and presented him with something, a small gift tied with ribbon.
Redlich, laughing, said “if it’s a present, I don’t think I can take it.”
Placing it on the desk at the front of the lecture theatre —“we’ll put it there”— the Commissioner returned to his seat.
Watch the 2022 John Barry Memorial Lecture in Criminology.
The John Barry Memorial Lecture was also the opportunity to present the 2022 John Barry Memorial Medal to the highest performing graduate student in the Master of Criminology. This year the 2022 medal was awarded to Emily Cullen Ross for her outstanding research thesis entitled ‘An intersectional feminist analysis of public perceptions of street harassment’. Congratulations, Emily.
About the John Barry Memorial Lecture
The Honourable Sir John Vincent William Barry, Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria from 1947, and Foundation Chairman of The Board of Studies in Criminology at the University of Melbourne from 1951, was a distinguished graduate of this University. Sir John did much to stimulate the growth of the study of Criminology, not only at this University, but also throughout Australia and abroad. Each year, the John Barry Memorial Lecture seeks to inform and educate on topics of criminological significance, continuing Sir John’s commitment to criminological research.
The Criminology discipline within the School of Social and Political Sciences presented the prestigious 44th John Barry Memorial Lecture with the support of the Barry family.