Committee on the Independent Commission Against Corruption

COMMITTEE ON THE INDEPENDENT COMMISSION AGAINST CORRUPTION
COMMENTARY
This advice concluded that the TIA Act would enable the Commission to provide the
Inspector with applications for telecommunications interception warrants where
there is a targeted inspection into an allegation of misconduct or corruption but not
for undertaking a general audit to ascertain if misconduct had occurred. 53
89. The then ICAC <strong>Committee</strong> supported the then Inspector in seeking amendments
to the TIA Act to enable access to telecommunications interception material for
audit purposes. 54 The then Commissioner also expressed support for the
Inspector’s proposed amendments:
The important function of the Inspector is to ensure that people in the organisation
do not abuse the power they have to tap phones and to put surveillance devices on
people so that members of the public have confidence we are not doing it. … So far
as I am concerned, any possible inhibition in this legislation to the Inspector would
get my support if it were removed. 55
90. The <strong>Committee</strong> understands that access to telecommunications interception
material for oversight purposes is also an issue for the Inspector in his role as
Inspector of the Police Integrity Commission and an issue for inspectors of law
enforcement and integrity bodies in other States:
I recently met with some inspectors or occupants of cognate offices from Western
Australia, Queensland and Victoria, who all have the same problem, and we
discussed it. 56
91. The Inspector made a submission to the recent Commonwealth Legal and
Constitutional Affairs References <strong>Committee</strong> inquiry into comprehensive revision
of the TIA Act in relation to this issue, submitting that the inability to access all
records held by the ICAC means that the Inspector is not fully able to perform his
or her statutory functions:
The current position is therefore that the Inspector (of the ICAC) is unable to fully
perform his or her statutory functions. In particular, in performance of the
Inspector’s audit function, he or she may wish to assess the legality and propriety of
the ICAC’s reliance on telephone intercepts in furtherance of its investigations and in
order to do so, may need to access the intercepted information obtained under
warrant. A warrant and interception under the TIA Act could proceed for purposes
not appropriate to the objectives of the ICAC but rather, for improper purposes. It is
for this reason that the Inspector has been given the powers of audit. However, the
current form of the TIA Act is said to prevent the Inspector from accessing such
53 Inspector of the ICAC, 2008-2009 Annual Report, pp 5-6, ICAC Inspector’s website,
http://www.oiicac.nsw.gov.au/assets/oiicac/reports/annual-reports/Annual-Report-2008-2009.pdf, viewed 5
February 2016.
54 <strong>Committee</strong> on the ICAC, Review of the 2008-2009 Annual Report of the Inspector of the Independent Commission
Against Corruption, Report 11/54, November 2010, pp 13-17, NSW Parliament website,
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/66aa4c9cdc1823f6ca2577e600187e6a/$FILE/I
CAC%20Inspector%20AR%202008-2009%2011-54.pdf, viewed 5 February 2016.
55 <strong>Committee</strong> on the ICAC, Review of the 2008-2009 Annual Report of the Inspector of the Independent Commission
Against Corruption, Report 11/54, November 2010, p 14.
56 The Hon David Levine OA RFD QC, Transcript of Evidence, 7 August 2015, p 3.
18 REPORT 1/56