Corruption watchdog admits to mishandling complaint

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The national anti-corruption commission has admitted it breached its own legislation in failing to refer a misconduct complaint about one of its commissioners to its independent inspector. The matter had initially been dismissed only to be quietly acknowledged months later in a private apology.

Transcript

00:00So what we've seen here is a clear misstep from the National Anti-Corruption Commission

00:07and what they've done is they've breached its own act.

00:11So the National Anti-Corruption Act, Section 203, determines that any referral that goes

00:17to the body that involves an allegation of misconduct against a staff member, such as

00:23a commissioner for example, it's got to be passed on to the inspector or the watchdog

00:29watchdog if you like.

00:31So that person is Gail Furness.

00:33But as I've revealed today on this occasion in November of last year, that did not happen.

00:40So essentially the commission received his complaint about one of the commissioners, so that's the

00:45senior leadership of the integrity watchdog, and they essentially dismissed it.

00:51This has only come to light after a private apology was sent to the complainant and I'll

00:57share a bit of that letter with you now.

01:00So this is from Deputy Commissioner Kylie Kilgore to the complainant in February of this year.

01:06And in it she says, unfortunately the commission staff who received your referral assessed only

01:12whether your matter raised a corruption issue and did not consider whether the matter should

01:17be referred to the inspector.

01:19She goes on to say, I apologise for this error.

01:23The problem being here that the complainant had to go back to the watchdog and ask them,

01:28why haven't you passed this on to the inspector in the first place?

01:31So this is a pretty serious admission of error.

01:35Inspector Gail Furness did eventually consider the matter and she deemed that it was outside

01:40her jurisdiction.

01:41But it's certainly raising questions about the body in general considering it is supposed to

01:48be holding public institutions to account and in this case it failed to follow its own rules.

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