Australian Administrative Law Research Paper 2022

Australian Administrative Law
10/15/2019
Student’s Name

Australian administrative law 1
For different topics and issues, different laws are required to be there. Corruption is one such issue
that needs to be considered by the government of different nations. In Australia, Senate recently
passed National Integrity Commission Bill on 9th September 20191. The lead idea of the bill is to
develop an independent public sector anti-corruption commission. At present, the subjective bill is
a topic of debate in Australia where some of the authorities think the same beneficial and support
the establishment of the same whereas some of them think otherwise. The piece of paper is
presented here to develop an understanding of the subjective bill and to check and determine
whether the federal government should pass the same or not to pass the same. To make this
argument, the status of corruption in Australia and the features of the proposed bill will be
discussed.
Starting the discussion on the said bill, first the background of the story us required to understand.
The Bill is long-awaited and establishes national integrity commission (NIC) as an anti-corruption
commission that also proposes consequential amendments in current legislations such as Public
Interest Disclosure Act 20132, Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 20063 and
Ombudsman Act 19764. The lead feature of this bill is that the same will be operated at the federal
jurisdiction level and will not bring any impact on the state legislations. It means the same shall
not replace or override the state legislations and the commission established under this act will
support anti-corruption commissions working at the state level. The Australian Labor Party and
the Australian Greens are two of the lead parties that support this Bill. The development of NIC is
always been in one of the agenda of the Australian Greens. The efforts have been started since
August 2009 where Senator Bob Brown, one of the leaders of Greens forward the motion
proposing the development of NIC. Since then Green is putting efforts to get this bill pass and to
form an anti-corruption commission at federal level5
Corruption in Australia: - In Australia, at every level of society, corruption seems to exist.
Corruption can be understood as a misused power for personal benefits. Depending on the context
1 Theyvoteforyou.org.au, For creating a federal Anti-Corruption Commission (Theyvoteforyou.org.au) <
https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/policies/86/detail>.
2 Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth)
3 Enforcement Integrity Commissioner Act 2006 (Cth)
4 Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth)
5 Cat Barker, What might a National Integrity Commission look like? (Parliament of Australia) <
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2019/
April/National_integrity_commission>.

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and local culture, corruption can be of different types. Across various sectors, corruption and
integrity issues can be seen especially in public sectors. It is notable that recently Australia
declined in Transparency International's latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Foreign Bribery
another issue that may be seen in Australia. Public officials are mainly involved in such kind of
activities that lead to corruption in the country. Although the country has ratified OECD
Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business
Transactions (Anti-Bribery Convention), yet some more efforts need to be developed and NIC
seems a better suggestion in this scenario6. Continued revelations of corruption in private and
public sectors highlight the needs of integrity and anti-corruption framework. As per the results of
ANUpoll on Perceptions of Corruption 2012, 43% of respondents believe that corruption is
increasing7. In the second reading of NIC Bill 2019, members of the Australia Parliament argued
in favor of the establishment of the said commission. He considered the NIC Bill necessary for the
future of democracy. He stated that in recent times Australian have faced scandal after scandal.
This is the reason that the whole country needs an anti-corruption commission at the federal level
as an authority that may be held the members of this place liable. The introduction of this bill is
expected to support the long-lasting reform of the current laws. A national office of integrity
commissioner shall be developed as a result of this commission which shall consist of the
following three elements:-
 The National Integrity Commission
 The new office of the independent parliamentary adviser
 The existing Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity
NIC will be an independent statutory agency8. This commission is expected to prevent corruption
and misconduct activities in public services. NIC is also important for the reason, as right now
there is no agency at the national level that can investigate the claims of corruption and
misconduct. While arguing in the favor of this bill, he took an example of New South Wales
6 Tobin Meagher and Richard Abraham, Bribery & Corruption 2019 (Global Legal Insights) <
https://www.globallegalinsights.com/practice-areas/bribery-and-corruption-laws-and-regulations/australia>.
7 Aph.gov.au, Corruption in Australia (Parliament of Australia) <
https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/establishment_of_a_national_integrity_commiss
ion/nic/interim%20report/c02>.
8 Tai.org.au,
Principles for designing a National Integrity Commission (Transparency
International Australia) < https://www.tai.org.au/sites/default/files/Principles%20for
%20designing%20a%20National%20Integrity%20Commission.pdf>.