Why Tasmania needs a Commission for Ethics

Jeff Malpas

Whatever the details of their constitution, such bodies play an important role in promoting and maintaining high levels of governmental and administrative propriety and effectiveness. In Tasmania such a body could be established, as Sir Max Bingham has argued, with a minimum of resources (and at minimum cost) drawing on existing structures and expertise and constituted as a small (perhaps three-person) commission that would manage and direct both educative and investigative functions, but that would draw on outside expertise for its educational and training programmes, with staff seconded as required from the public service or from the State or Federal Police.
THE IDEA that there is a need for an independent body to promote ethical conduct within government and, on occasion, to deal with cases of misconduct is common across many jurisdictions in the English-speaking world. The idea is realised institutionally in a range of different forms from anti-corruption commissions of the sort that exists in New South Wales to the Office of the Ethics Commissioner in Canada.

The establishment of a body to promote ethical conduct in Tasmanian government would thus be in accord with similar bodies elsewhere, and should be seen to follow directly from a basic commitment to good and effective government. In this respect, it is important to note that only a minority of overseas and interstate bodies are specifically designed to deal with corruption as that may be associated with organized crime – most have an orientation that is concerned with the proper functioning of government as such, and typically have a focus that is often educative more than it is investigative or disciplinary.

Whatever the details of their constitution, such bodies play an important role in promoting and maintaining high levels of governmental and administrative propriety and effectiveness. In Tasmania such a body could be established, as Sir Max Bingham has argued, with a minimum of resources (and at minimum cost) drawing on existing structures and expertise and constituted as a small (perhaps three-person) commission that would manage and direct both educative and investigative functions, but that would draw on outside expertise for its educational and training programmes, with staff seconded as required from the public service or from the State or Federal Police.

Such a body would focus on ethical conduct (and so also on misconduct), not only on the part of Government, but with respect to all members of the Parliament, and ought to be viewed, not as a commission against corruption, but a commission for ethics. As such, it would be a body with the positive task of promoting ethics in government, as well as investigating cases of ethical impropriety.

Not only would such a body be likely to have a positive effect in improving the effectiveness of government in Tasmania, and thereby provide a way to address the pressing community concerns about the contemporary state of Government in the State, but it would also assist in promoting and supporting ethical culture and leadership across Tasmanian society, providing a stronger framework for business as well as government.