PROFESSOR GEOFF GALLOPS ATTACKS BID TO REDIRECT CCC - PUBLIC SECTOR MISCONDUCT

Gallop attacks bid to redirect CCC

DANIEL EMERSON, The West Australian Updated November 18, 2011, 3:30 am

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Former premier Geoff Gallop yesterday attacked the Barnett Government's plan to shift the Corruption and Crime Commission's focus away from public sector misconduct.

In a rare foray into local politics since his retirement in 2006, Professor Gallop - one of the architects of the CCC - told an international audience of law enforcement experts that the proposed move ran counter to the intentions of the WA Parliament, which passed the CCC legislation in 2003.

He told 517 delegates from across Australia and countries including South Africa, New Zealand and Britain that public sector integrity was one of the "foundation stones of good government". The CCC had only been in existence a short time and "now is hardly the time to take our eye off the ball", Professor Gallop, now director of the graduate school of government at the University of Sydney, said.

"There's too much at stake," he told the Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Conference at Fremantle's Esplanade Hotel.

The Barnett Government plans to introduce legislation refocusing the CCC to tackle organised crime in co-operation with WA Police, while leaving public sector misconduct to the Public Sector Commission.

Professor Gallop's speech added to high-level criticism of the move from figures including CCC parliamentary inspector Christopher Steytler and Parliament's CCC oversight committee. Outside the conference, Professor Gallop said the proposal was "a serious mistake and it goes against all of the advice that we as politicians have got in WA from major inquiries in the past 20 years".

"It's a real concern because the royal commission back in the 1990s made it absolutely clear what we needed and we acted on their advice," he said.

Professor Gallop said other agencies were specifically devoted to dealing with organised crime and the PSC did not have the investigative powers to deal with serious misconduct and corruption in and around government.

Views on both sides of the debate over the CCC's future were aired at the three-day conference, which ended yesterday