New South Wales Labor leader Chris Minns says his party will commit to independent funding for the state’s anti-corruption watchdog, amid long-running concern that the integrity agency is overly reliant on the political parties it is tasked with investigating.
On Tuesday, Labor will announce it will adopt a series of recommendations to make funding for the Independent Commission Against Corruption at arm’s length from the government by tasking a parliamentary committee with making recommendations on its annual budget.
The policy, which also includes the allocation of contingency funds for the agency to cover “unexpected matters”, follows a series of recommendations from both the Icac and the NSW auditor general that sought changes to its funding model.
It comes as the Icac has found itself the subject of fierce criticism from figures in both the state and federal governments, after its investigation into the former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian prompted her resignation last year.
Minns told Guardian Australia a Labor government would appoint a standing committee to make recommendations about the Icac’s annual budget, as well as commit to public reporting by the executive in cases where “the committee recommendation and the budget allocation are not the same”.
Labor would also set aside a contingency fund of an additional 25% of yearly funding “for access by the Icac for unexpected matters arising that require urgent attention”, he said.
The announcement also comes less than a month after the Icac found former NSW Labor MP Ernest Wong engaged in corrupt conduct by concealing illegal political donations from a Chinese property developer in 2015.
But Minns, who previously called on the party faithful to support the Icac’s Operation Aero probe into whether Chinese Friends of Labor members and donors evaded NSW donation laws, said investigations into his own party’s practices made independent funding for the agency more important.
“NSW Labor supports Icac not because it investigates our opponents, but because it investigates us,” he said.
“The work of the Icac is essential to public accountability in this state. Knowing the Icac is watching helps people have faith and trust in their government and political leaders.
“Integrity in politics cannot be a matter for debate, and the body that oversees this integrity cannot risk having their funding held over their heads by the very people they hold accountable.”
The funding of the Icac and other key integrity agencies in NSW has been the subject of ongoing concern for several years.
Despite warnings from the NSW auditor general and the high-profile Sydney barrister Bret Walker SC that the commission’s funding model risked undermining the integrity body’s independence, the government has yet to move on proposed funding changes.
The Icac itself has raised similar concerns, arguing the process of funding it through a mix of appropriation and grant money was both “inconsistent with the commission’s independence and unlawful”.
In February, the premier, Dominic Perrottet, told parliament he had met with the heads of the integrity agencies, saying he was committed to ensuring that they “have appropriate funding to continue the important work they do”.
He said the government would announce changes to the funding models before the next budget.
“I believe the proposal that we will put in place will adequately address the concerns that the individual agencies have raised,” he said.
But the Icac has been subject to criticism from within his own government. During the same parliamentary question time last month, the deputy Liberal Party leader, Stuart Ayres, was picked up by microphones saying the government would commit to an independent funding model for the Icac “when they stop wasting our money”.
Questioned in a budget estimates hearing last week, Ayres did not walk away from the comments, saying he was “highly critical” of “some of the timing around those investigations” – including Operation Keppel, which led to Berejiklian’s resignation.
Asked whether he stood by the comments, Ayres, who was a witness in that public inquiry, said: “I gave evidence in the public hearing very clearly that I did not believe that Gladys Berejiklian had breached any code of conduct inquiry.”
“I thought it was a travesty that the Icac delayed its inquiry, quite clearly, into its investigation into the allocation of funds to the ALP, and that it recently – in fact, subsequent to those comments that were captured on the microphone – has released that outcome,” he said.
