Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Integrity and Oversight Committee

Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2020/21: Focus on Witness Welfare

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (10:31): My contribution today is on a report tabled by the Integrity and Oversight Committee, the Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2020/21: Focus on Witness Welfare. Members will be well aware that there are a number of integrity agencies established in Victoria, those being the Victorian Ombudsman, the Victorian Inspectorate, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner and IBAC, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. We know they have been established with a particular object, and that is about accountability and transparency of government. These are key principles underpinning responsible government, and that can be seen in the introduction here.

I think this is an area that the Andrews Labor government has failed repeatedly in in this regard. There have been so many referrals to IBAC. It is important to note that these integrity agencies are not subject to the direction or control of the executive government and are directly accountable to Parliament through the Integrity and Oversight Committee. Despite that, the earlier IOC report, The Independent Performance Audits of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and the Victorian Inspectorate, showed direct interference by government rather than having just the oversight. We have seen some pretty amazing things in this report as well, and I will be focusing on the minority report.

The report that we have here, ‘Focus on witness welfare’, I think is important to stop and reflect on. The IOC, we know, is the committee that had five chairs over a four-year period, which in itself must be a record in this place. If we have a think about witness welfare, why is that important? We all need to stop for a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of a witness. Some of the witnesses that are called will be dodgy and will have something to hide. A lot of them will just be called by reference or by having something to do with, being closely aligned with or having worked with somebody and are being brought forward as someone who might have something to offer the hearing.

For many of these witnesses it would be the first time. If you are going to any of the oversight committees for the first time, whether it be the Ombudsman or IBAC, it can be very harrowing I would imagine and perhaps intimidating, because this would be an unknown experience. You do not know what to expect, how it is going to play out. I think this report has highlighted some of the shortcomings. It was instigated because of the tragic outcome of one of the witnesses, former councillor for Casey Amanda Stapleton, who took her life in January 2022. Amanda had been a witness and obviously had a very harrowing experience, not just at the time of being called but in the subsequent period and probably even the period leading up to being called. She was left waiting, and because she did not know what would happen, did not hear what would happen, the anxiety and the stress certainly grew to the most regrettable extent in that case. I imagine a lot of people would be very much suffering, wondering what the outcome was going to be. Amanda had given evidence 22 months prior. That was almost 2 years when the anxiety and tension and worry continued to grow and really escalate. She did not know that IBAC did not intend to bring criminal charges against her, so she was wondering all of this time what would happen, and that clearly got too much. So I think it is so important that all of us stop to think about what it should be like for the witnesses.

We have also had people that have gone to the Ombudsman for the first time, and many of us would have had these people come to us in our offices and seek advice about this. I had a report tabled by the Ombudsman some time ago which dealt with one matter in a former part of my electorate and one in a current part, and for the people that were in and around that, that was very stressful. They had nothing to hide in those instances, but the whole process can be very stressful. I think that we need to place a focus on witness welfare and think about how we are best to treat them. There is a lot more in the minority report that I will talk about on another occasion, because this is the infamous one where the plug was pulled during the inquiry. I will talk about that next time.