When federal parliament returns in three weeks, one of its tasks will be to deal with legislation for a national anti-corruption body.
While it will take some time to work out the details, the head of one of Australia's longest-serving corruption watchdogs has offered some guiding principles to avoid the federal body becoming "window dressing".
After a storied career in the legal profession, John McKechnie has now spent more than seven years overseeing the investigation of serious misconduct in Western Australia's public sector.
Despite describing his ideas as controversial, he said they were necessary.
"They must have the power to initiate inquiries themselves, they must not only rely on recommendations, they must have the ability to be retrospective and they must have the ability to fearlessly examine anything, wherever it comes [from]," he said.
Mr McKechnie's other recommendation related to what happens when an anti-corruption body reaches the end of its investigation, and whether it is allowed to form an opinion about whether actions amount to misconduct.
"An opinion which we sometimes form has no legal consequences, but clearly it has reputational consequences and it lets the public, who are actually paying for all of this, know what's happening," he said.
As for what can be learnt from other state bodies, Mr McKechnie made specific reference to the practice of the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) taking evidence in private, and then again in public.
"I think you can see what ICAC has done over the years, and it's not something that I would follow," Mr McKechnie said.
Watchdog should have role in corruption prevention
While the current WA model does have all of those features, Mr McKechnie is also hoping a review into the state's laws will give the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) back one of its previous functions.
Until 2015, it was responsible for educating the public sector about corruption, as well as preventing it. Now, it's only required to investigate it.
Appearing before a parliamentary committee looking into the effectiveness of the CCC, Mr McKechnie said it was an important power for the commission to have back as there was a "gap" in the current scheme.
"In practice, we often see matters which would be good examples of education in corruption prevention," he said.
"But we're somewhat constrained now in reporting on those, generally because we no longer have that power."
'Gap' in data collection
Mr McKechnie also acknowledged deficiencies in how the state dealt with lower-level misconduct, and the lessons that could be learnt from those incidents.
"I think there's a gap in data collection, so that we're not entirely sure what or how big a problem we might have in misconduct," he said.
"We can only work, as can the Public Sector Commission, on reports, so that doesn't necessarily give a true picture."
It is an area the inquiry was told the CCC was working on, with hopes it would have a greater ability to analyse trends as its body of data grows.
The inquiry is considering the effectiveness of the CCC, and related bodies, when dealing with what comes after a finding of serious misconduct is made.
More than 30 people charged since 2016
Figures provided to the committee show that since July 2016, the commission investigated more than 470 allegations, of which 29 resulted in a finding of serious misconduct.
Those outcomes led to 33 people being charged with various offences.
Of those, 18 — or just over half — were convicted on some or all of those charges.
In nearly one out of five cases, the charges were dropped or the person was acquitted. Just over a quarter related to ongoing court cases.
Mr McKechnie told the inquiry it was inevitable not all charges would succeed, in part because the CCC requires a lower standard of proof to form an opinion, compared to a criminal case.
A person may also be compelled to testify before the CCC, leading to a particular finding, but could then choose not to give evidence in a criminal trial, meaning a case cannot be made.
CCC can't deal with all reports
Mr McKechnie also gave evidence about the CCC's ability to investigate unexplained wealth – a power it was given in 2018.
He admitted the commission would not be able to deal with all of the more than 60 reports it has before it but said that was not a failure.
"It's just a question of using state resources," he said.
"We've proved the concept, we've recently sold a house, sold a series of handbags, sold a series of shoes, several motor vehicles, from one person who was unable to explain the source of their wealth."
In this year's state budget, the CCC was given an extra $2.8 million for this function.
While the majority of investigations it has conducted to date have related to organised crime, at least two were linked to public servants, including Paul Whyte.
