Page 3200 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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MR MOORE: I accept your apology. As I was saying, such a model is patently unsuitable for us to follow, for several reasons. Firstly, the different tiers of government, the size of their supporting bureaucracies and the sheer geographical spread of administrative services in that State provide the potential for a complex pattern of corruption which might require the undivided attention and scrutiny of a separate agency to investigate and identify. In contrast, the ACT possesses a single tier of government, a small and geographically close bureaucracy in which corrupt practices are more difficult to hide.
Secondly, allegations of corruption in New South Wales have attended public life in that State since the Rum Corps. Whether those allegations have been true or not, the very existence of such a tradition means that attempts to investigate corruption made by politicians and bureaucrats whose behaviour was already tainted in the public mind will be regarded with suspicion. In that atmosphere, the necessity for an independent commission which is visibly free of influence from vested political and administrative interests is critical to public confidence. With no real tradition of suspected corruption and the diversity of political interests represented in the current Assembly, there are far fewer barriers to the conduct of an investigation into corruption being carried out, for example, by a committee of the Assembly.
Thirdly, relative to the size of the alleged problem and the financial resources available in New South Wales, the cost of an independent commission - along with secretariat and investigative support functions - is minimal. I recognise that in this regard the report by the committee has suggested a minimal style of investigative body, not one of the sort that Mr Collaery had so long and so often pushed for. It is preferable to harness existing functions to the task, thereby confining additional costs to an absolute minimum, particularly with the economic circumstances applying at present.
Fourthly, the allegations of corruption thus far put before this Assembly have proved to be of little substance. Although this is no argument against the possibility that unrevealed examples of serious corruption may come to light in future, any process of investigation should proceed on the basis that sufficient flexibility exists to expand and intensify those investigations, rather than on the basis of diverting from the very start the kind of resources which might prove necessary if our most fearful and colourful imaginings somehow prove to be the case. In New South Wales, allegations and revelations about past administrations have established a clear need for a maximum effort to be directed at the problem from the outset.
On the basis of allegations or cases which have come to light so far, the main areas in which potential exists for corruption are: politicians accepting funds or other rewards for using their positions to influence decisions in
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