Former IBAC Commissioner welcomes new follow-the-money powers

0:00Victoria's Anti-Corruption Commission is set to receive new, follow the money powers after the Carroll Government introduced new laws to Parliament yesterday. But the opposition says the reforms fall short and restrict IBAC's ability to deal with corruption in the construction sector by making allegations previously dealt with off-limits. Robert Redlich is a former IBAC commissioner who has long called for a Royal Commission into the big build scandal. He is the chair of the Accountability Roundtable and joins me now. Robert Redlich, welcome back to breakfast. Pleas to with you, Mr Sally. On the face of it, do this legislation really allow the IBAC to go where it needs to go? I think it will. And subject to the qualification you mentioned a moment ago, that I think presently there needs to be a tweaking of the draft bill that's before Parliament to ensure that where IBAC

1:03has previously been unable to investigate something because of the limited jurisdiction it previously had. If the Royal Commission wants IBAC to take a matter up, the bill needs to accommodate the ability of IBAC to return to an issue previously dismissed. The ability to return to issues that have been previously examined. What does that say about some of those previous examinations and the limitations that were there at that time? Well, I think my predecessor and I throughout our periods with IBAC had long pushed for the importance of requiring integrity to extend beyond the proof of a criminal offence because that's been the limit of IBAC until now so that we should come into line with jurisdiction of ICAC, the New South Wales Integrity Commission and the National Integrity Commission, the NAC, which both have the capacity to explore what we call soft corruption.

2:09Let's talk about the follow the money provisions. A lot of us have heard about this in the headlines, particularly in the past few weeks. What does it mean in practice for a commission or a commissioner? It means that wherever any person performs functions for or on behalf of the public body or a public officer, then they can be caught by the soft corruption jurisdiction which I think will have. So, in the case of the big build, every contractor, every subcontractor, every employee who is just charging work on the big build will be what we call an associated entity for the purposes of the new legislation and they will be amenable to IBAC's jurisdiction if they've acted in properly in providing their services. So we have the longstanding IBAC now, we have the Royal Commission which will proceed. Do these two organisations get in each other's way?

3:11Robert, or do they complement each other? How is it looking at the moment with what we know? Well, the government in the letters patent containing the terms of reference for the Royal Commission said that it expects the Royal Commission to be able to work collaboratively with IBAC, with the special prosecutor that's going to be appointed to assist the commission and with Victoria Police. So that's why the tweak to the existing draft legislation needs to be made to ensure that whenever the Royal Commission wants IBAC to look at something, then the fact that they've previously been unable to look at it must not stand in the way of the commission being able to refer it back to IBAC. So there need to be a limit on how far back old complaints can be brought, can return to IBAC. What should that be? Of course. I think it's unthinkable that the change or the broadening of the jurisdiction means every person who's previously had a complaint considered by IBAC should be able to go back

4:15there and have the issue revisited. IBAC would be totally overwhelmed and unable to discharge its functions. They need to be able to focus on current, on contemporaneous issues. Of course, the big build for Victoria is now the primary integrity issue, which is consuming the state. Robert Redlich, thank you so much for making some time for breakfast this morning. That's my pleasure.