ICAC anyone?

The proposed "Independent Commission Against Corruption" at national or federal level may now occur. It has been a long time coming.

I have no problems with having an ICAC as such. I do have some concerns about the apparently secretive nature of it. It seems there are plans to hold most hearings behind closed doors. Only those things deemed to be in the public interest will be pursued in an open court.

Now yes, this can be a very good thing. In the normal way this will sometimes protect people who give evidence about wrong doing. It can also protect people who are vulnerable for other reasons. There is sometimes information which needs to be withheld from the public for any number of reasons. 

The difficulty where corruption is concerned is that the information is going to leak out. Someone somewhere is going to say something. After that it is a game of "Chinese whispers" and false information will, at very least, spread rapidly through social media. There needs to be a mechanism to deal with that.

The other thing that concerns me is that the proposed legislation allows for "retrospective" prosecutions. I don't agree with that. If there is evidence of corruption in the past then it should be dealt with in accordance with the law at the time.  If the evidence was there at the time then it should have been dealt with then. It is not the role of an ICAC to be a kangaroo court or a lynch mob. 

There is a real danger that the proposed ICAC will however be just that. We have already heard those now in government saying that they plan to use an ICAC to pursue the previous government. At the same time the present government has prevented the prosecution - on separate charges - of a former Prime Minister and a current Minister. Unless they are prepared to go ahead with those charges then no ICAC should be retrospective.

An ICAC will be expensive, very expensive. Let's get it right.