‘For too long it has operated in secrecy’: Inside Canberra’s anti-corruption identity crisis
For almost two years, the storm that has now engulfed the National Anti-Corruption Commission gathered slowly, unexpectedly and often behind closed doors.
It began with questions about robo-debt. Then came findings of “officer misconduct” against the commissioner himself. After that, scrutiny over Paul Brereton’s continuing ties to Defence. By this week, the pressure had become impossible to contain.
On Monday, Brereton resigned as the nation’s inaugural anti-corruption commissioner three years into a five-year term. Twenty-four hours later, he faced a bruising Senate estimates hearing defending both his conduct and the institution he leaves behind.
By the end of the night, the scandal deepened further when NACC inspector Gail Furness revealed a third investigation into his conduct was under way. For an agency created to restore public faith in politics, it was an extraordinary spectacle: the head of Australia’s integrity watchdog fighting to preserve confidence in his own integrity.
“I accept that I have in some way contributed to this outcome, but I do not accept that my standards have in any way fallen below an appropriate standard,” Brereton told senators. “The press attention is focused on me and my interests. The need to defend that has become a distraction, and that is basically why I have decided that it is in the interests of the organisation that I remove that distraction.”
But the hearing laid bare not just his departure, but a deeper identity crisis inside the NACC.
Investigating the investigators
Four years ago, the Albanese government promised a new era of integrity after a decade of political scandals under the Coalition. Creating a federal anti-corruption commission became Labor’s defining institutional reform – proof that Canberra had finally recognised public trust in politics was collapsing. The expectation was enormous. Perhaps impossibly so.
Then-attorney-general Mark Dreyfus had pushed for stronger public hearing powers, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior NSW Labor figures resisted, wary of potential reputational damage from public anti-corruption hearings.
Albanese is a long-time sceptic and originally argued against a federal body internally. He has cited Rudd/Gillard-era cabinet minister Greg Combet in private discussions as being unfairly damaged by publicity after testifying at a 2013 NSW corruption inquiry into disgraced former NSW Labor resources minister Ian Macdonald, despite no wrongdoing.
But with a strong commitment having already been made under previous leader Bill Shorten, the compromise produced a cautious design: public hearings only in exceptional circumstances and where in the public interest.
That structural caution soon collided with culture.
Brereton, then on the NSW Court of Appeal, had been the outstanding candidate of a list presented to government that came largely from Defence and the judiciary – systems built on hierarchy and confidentiality. He was paid $803,440 for his full-time position.
Integrity advocates say those instincts shaped the commission’s early tone: defensive, legalistic and wary of scrutiny.
Critics, such as Greens senator David Shoebridge, say despite receiving thousands of referrals, the public record of serious corruption findings remains embarrassingly thin. An integrity body that cannot or does not produce visible accountability outcomes, they argued, would not retain public legitimacy.
They also point to the time it has taken to reach decisions. It took almost two years after former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds referred Dreyfus in August 2023 over Brittany Higgins’ compensation payout to dismiss it in June last year.
Those kinder to Brereton, say his real failing was the sales job. He didn’t communicate to the public what the body was doing and how it was working. Instead, he was secretive and aloof. An analogue man in a digital world.
The first rupture came with robo-debt, the illegal welfare debt scheme that was the subject of a landmark royal commission. When it referred six officials for possible corruption investigation, the NACC declined to act. The backlash was immediate.
NACC inspector Furness found Brereton had engaged in “officer misconduct” after failing to properly recuse himself from discussions involving former Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell, an army reserve colleague of Brereton. Campbell was found to have breached the APS code of conduct 12 times by the robo-debt royal commission, and quit the public service before those findings. Furness found the process was affected by “apprehended bias”.
Former High Court justice Geoffrey Nettle later overturned the NACC’s decision, ordering the referrals be investigated. The reversal severely damaged the commission’s credibility.
That gap widened further with scrutiny of Brereton’s continuing Defence ties. While commissioner, he provided what he called “ongoing, very modest informal assistance” to the inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force, where he had previously headed an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan.
The work by the former major general was unpaid and limited. But Defence is a major source of NACC referrals, and critics said the arrangement also risked apprehended bias.
His deputies, Nicole Rose, Kylie Kilgour and Ben Gauntlett, told the parliamentary committee last year they believed Brereton’s recusal was necessary.
At Senate estimates this week, Brereton conceded: “With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better if I was not involved in that at all.” Officials conceded taxpayers had already spent $204,000 on legal advice connected to the inspector’s investigations into him.
Hours later, Furness revealed to senators that another investigation into Brereton began in April, alongside an earlier inquiry into Defence conflicts nearing completion. She did not disclose any details.
Brereton warned senators about making assumptions about findings, saying Furness’ investigation “might turn out very different” from a draft already handed to him.
But the symbolism was stark: the commissioner departed while under multiple ongoing scrutiny processes overseen by his own watchdog.
“There were no real tears shed for his departure,” one source familiar with NACC discussions within government said.
Rose has also resigned, amid swirling rumours of a souring in the pair’s professional relationship. She this week rejected that and said her decision to move overseas with her family was the reason.
Among government ranks, Rose, a former head of AUSTRAC, was highly respected and spoken about as a future commissioner.
“They will be sadly missed,” NACC chief executive Philip Reed said, adding he thought Brereton had been treated “very poorly” by parliamentarians and commentators.
‘For too long it has operated in secrecy’
The deeper problem for the commission is not just personal conduct, it is legitimacy.
Anti-corruption agencies rely almost entirely on public confidence. The NACC has also faced criticism over secrecy, internal defensiveness, and opaque integrity policies that were only revealed through freedom of information disclosures.
Brereton says the scrutiny has amounted to a commission in which staff are “terrified of making any mistake of fact or law because they fear they will be visited with a finding of officer misconduct”.
But Anthony Whealy, KC, the chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, an independent research institute, said that response summed up the importance of changing the culture at the commission.
“For too long it has operated in secrecy,” he said. “It’s no wonder that its staff are uneasy with calls for robust accountability and transparency. Open accountability must become the norm if the NACC is to fulfil its statutory purpose.”
Independent MP Helen Haines, the deputy chair of the oversight committee, is optimistic about a chance for a reset.
“We have seen some initial problems ... and we don’t want to repeat those, and we want to set ourselves up to succeed in stamping out corruption,” she said. “But it still has work to do on transparency, communication, and public confidence if it is to deliver.”
She said recent Australian National Audit Office findings on freedom of information failures across government reinforced broader concerns about Australia’s weak transparency culture. She echoed calls to ensure the government was properly funding the Auditor-General’s work.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland now faces the task of appointing a new commissioner capable of restoring confidence.
“This does give us an opportunity with these new appointments to have a reset,” she told ABC on Friday. “And I will be engaging across the parliament to make sure that that happens.”
She has promised a merit-based appointment, but integrity campaigners want more meat on the bone.
The Centre for Public Integrity warns that the appointment process must be fundamentally reset. In a letter to the attorney-general, the centre called for a public call for applications, published criteria, and an independent selection panel to constrain ministerial discretion. The government said most of these steps are already enshrined in legislation.
“The next commissioner cannot be appointed behind closed doors,” said the letter, co-signed by Whealy, alongside signatories including Michael Barker, KC, Margaret White, professors Allan Fels and Joo Cheong Tham and Geoffrey Watson, SC. They argued anything less would risk “perpetuating the cloud” over the agency.
Professor AJ Brown, chair of Transparency International Australia, said the commission still has enormous potential.
“The NACC is proving it is good at the technical job of anti-corruption investigations. It’s how it addresses its wider purpose, and builds a better relationship with the public, which remains the big challenge,” he says.
Campaigners want a reset to include making it easier to hold public hearings and a tightening of conflict-of-interest laws.
“We need the next commissioner to help restore confidence in the organisation and for it to better fulfil the vision we had for it as a beacon of integrity,” independent senator David Pocock says.
But within government ranks, there are warnings of overcorrection and reminders that public hearings can damage reputations even without findings of wrongdoing. Others say holding them for exceptional circumstances should not mean never.
Brereton leaves behind a $60 million-a-year organisation with more than 200 staff. It has completed assessments of more than 92 per cent of the 7624 referrals received over the last three years. Its 34 current investigations cover former or current parliamentarians and staff, senior executives in the public service, contractors and consultants.
But after years of escalating controversy, one reality is unavoidable. The NACC was created to embody integrity, and it is still trying to prove it.
