Page 3201 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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favour of those from whom they have accepted the payment or gift; public servants accepting funds or other rewards in exchange for influencing decisions or providing information which will be to the advantage of those from whom they have accepted the payment or gift; politicians or public servants engaging in nepotism to appoint others to administrative positions; and public servants with private interests abusing their positions of public trust to obtain or exploit information to the advantage of those interests, which we can call, if you like, conflict of interest corruption.
There are other forms of potential corruption to which attention has recently been drawn, but at the time of my submission those categories were the only ones referred to in respect of the ACT. Even at that level, though, the Assembly and general public have precious little to go on in drawing a conclusion that corruption is somehow endemic in our administration - or even that it exists beyond odd isolated instances. Of course, this whole inquiry came out of what was clearly a few odd and isolated instances.
In respect of the first category, we have heard questions raised in the Assembly which appeared to be hinting at the possibility that something or other might be discovered to suggest a hint of corruption in relation to the Government's dealings, you will remember, with the Revlon company. Also there was a series of other allegations about the casino and about Mr Whalan. The question of financial corruption on the part of the public servants was also raised. But, as far as I can recall, the Assembly has experienced only one example of what, at the strongest, could be described as doubts raised about the propriety of public servants in terms of conflict of interest. Again, they were raised by the Residents Rally, and again they were poorly defined, contained little factual information and were soon forgotten. I wrote at that time:
Committee members should be aware that of late in the Assembly I have sought to distance myself from the campaign by the leader of the Residents Rally to prosecute so far unfounded allegations of corruption. Mr Collaery's enthusiasm for the slightest hint of anything corrupt may be well-meant, but his preparedness to rush into allegations on flimsy circumstantial or hearsay evidence was counterproductive and, at the time I belonged to the Rally, personally embarrassing to me.
I do not deny that corruption is possible in the ACT Government at the political administrative levels.
Mr Collaery: How about you and Chris Donohue on the fish farm?
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