The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has overseen three successful convictions since its inception last year, Crikey can reveal.
The most recent was a former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) employee, who was sentenced on Tuesday to five years in prison for corrupt conduct after accepting bribes from a taxpayer who was being audited. That sentencing was revealed in a NACC media release on Wednesday, the first time the watchdog had issued a media release about a specific case.
A NACC spokesperson told Crikey there had been two previous convictions resulting from its investigations, which until now had not been reported publicly. In all three cases, the NACC investigations had been inherited by the former Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity (ACLEI), which was absorbed into the NACC when the corruption watchdog was created on July 1, 2023.
“Two other inherited ACLEI investigations resulted in convictions, in early September 2023 and late January 2024 respectively, in proceedings that were held in public. This is the first case about which the commission has issued a media release,” the spokesperson said in an email.
No further information was immediately available on the September and January convictions.
The ATO employee was convicted in Sydney’s Parramatta District Court on several counts, including accepting a bribe as a Commonwealth official, abuse of public office, and unauthorised access and disclosure of restricted data, the commission said.
Investigators from the ATO had also worked on that case as part of an operation dubbed Barker. Operation Barker was supported by the Australian Federal Police, the NSW Police Force, the Department of Home Affairs, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.
The ex-ATO employee will have a non-parole period of two years and six months.
Court documents seen by Crikey said the sentence had been reduced by a quarter because the offender had offered to plead guilty.
In another update on Wednesday, the NACC said it was conducting 13 corruption investigations, including four alongside other agencies, and was monitoring 25 probes by other agencies. It also has seven investigations inherited from ACLEI.
The watchdog had received 2,637 referrals in total, 2,022 of which had been excluded from consideration, either because they didn’t involve a Commonwealth public official or they didn’t raise a corruption issue. There were 403 referrals under assessment, including 13 under preliminary investigation.
Get back to us when it starts investigating Spud’s role in the Paladin scandal.
I notice it was a employee and not a politician, why waste time if the vultures circle around easy targets instead of the corrupt pollies?
Early days…
All the laws government makes contain loopholes. This is because they only want the laws to capture people other than people like their good selves. You know, proper people. The catch for the Joe Blows of the world is that the loopholes require connections and money. This is why you rarely see a millionaire or politician in goal, or even accused of the most outrageous crimes.
A lot of legislation contains a clause that the legislation doesn’t apply to government. A bit bigger than a loophole.
When will they go after the real crooks – the politicians? Not just lowly public servants taking relatively small bribes.
Never , is the simple answer as both sides are as bad as each other in corruption stakes.
Right Honorable is a misnomer as none are Honorable
‘Right Honorable’ is a red flag, indicating an institutional need to assert the idea rather than maintaining a culture in which it’s routinely demonstrated.
Crap. You’ll find by far that the more right-wing the pollie, the bigger the stench.
If only we had running tallies. Maybe the lefties are better at hiding it bought on by the extra brain cell lefties have.
Confidence in the system is now fully restored. Great job chaps, keep up the great work.
At least, I assume it’s great, because it’s (ostensibly) secret, for, um, reasons
Yep Kimmo, as the saying goes, “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”. Unfortunately, the LNP/ALP duopoly doesn’t agree. Hopefully, when Labor has less than 76 seats after the next election, the crossbench insist on public hearings for the NACC as a pre-condition for guaranteeing confidence and supply.
It’s a hearing to establish a prima facie case, not a trial. Reputations can be destroyed even if no prosecution results if they are public, which you well know. In the interests of due process they will remain in camera. I ‘d take bets on it.
I’ll also take bets on Labor not being in minority government after the next election. They will either win with a majority or lose by a Coalition majority.
You are right that reputations could be tarnished for no good reason when no prosecution follows, but that’s missing a very important point. The NACC can also investigate matters involving misconduct, maladministration and unethical conduct which fall short of an indictable offence. In these cases we will not learn what happened when it reaches court because by definition it never will, and so those who are involved in misconduct, maladministration and unethical conduct will rest secure in their anonymity. We will not hear from them or from any witnesses who give evidence of their actions. We will have no chance to find out what the NACC has discovered or to decide for ourselves what we think of the evidence. Everything will be kept nice and cosy, and that’s why it’s been set up this way.
Which is all well and good….. except for those on the receiving end of the misconduct, maladministration and unethical conduct. For them, justice is a public outing of the perps because financial recompense is not applicable.
“Reputations can be destroyed even if no prosecution results if they are public”: I feel that if you go into public life, then you must accept that your actions are going to be scrutinised. How can a reputation be ruined if there is no dodgy behaviour? My point is, that even if a case can’t be made that could be successfully prosecuted, I want to know the way in which the pollies and public officials answer the questions at NACC inquiries so I can judge for myself how evasive etc the answers sound.
At the next general election, a uniform two party preferred swing of 1.0 percent would result in the ALP losing four seats. Enough to put them into minority government.
Bearing in mind that the LNP need 21 seats to win government in their own right, if there was a uniform 2.0 percent swing against the ALP, Greens, and independents, the liberals would still only win four seats from the ALP (Gilmore NSW, Lyons Tas, Lingiari NT, Bennelong NSW) and two from Independents (Curtin WA-Teal) and Fowler NSW Dai Le) A three percent swing, which is on the extreme end of polls favouring the Liberals in the last 18 months, the Liberals would win seven seats from the ALP, one from the Greens (Ryan) and six from Independents (Curtin WA-Teal), Fowler NSW Dai Le, Mackellar NSW-Teal, Goldstein Vic-Teal North Sydney NSW-Teal Kooyong Vic-Teal)
BUT, polling indicates the Libs are not going to win back any Teal seats, and Fowler is traditionally a Labor seat.
So, in reality, the LNP need something more like a 6.3 percent swing to win governent, and with a maximum 14 months to go to the next election, that is not impossible but it’s improbable. I think a minority Labor government is slightly more likely than a labor majority government, but, we’ll have to wait and see.
Scrutiny is fine, but reputations are ruined just by being publicly investigated.
People have been wrongly incarcerated and even executed for years on the public and media “vibe” of presumption of guilt just because they were accused.
The Dreyfus case was one of the most notorious – convicted mainly because he was a Jew. The Rosenbergs also come to mind, with Lindy Chamberlain , Catherine Follbig and numerous others in our own history. And an analogy can be found in the public opprobrium rained on the Paxton family, wrongly accused of wrongdoing in Ray Martin’s hatchet job.
Not to say that those who seemingly have transgressed shouldn’t come under investigation, but what purpose other than prurient self-righteousness does it serve to publicise mere accusations ?
Or does innocent until proven guilty have no currency in your bubble ?
That’s going down the fascistic route of the Yanks where no respect is paid to the principle of fairness, and the media ruins everything it touches.
I think reporting on one but not the others is questionable. They have singled out one person for public persecution. Release them all. This just says favouritism.