Thursday, 29 May 2025

Committees

Integrity and Oversight Committee

Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2022/23

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (09:36): Pursuant to section 35 of the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003, I table the report on the performance of Victorian integrity agencies 2022–23, including an appendix, from the Integrity and Oversight Committee and present the transcripts of evidence. I move:

That the transcripts of evidence be tabled and the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Ryan BATCHELOR: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

The Integrity and Oversight Committee is responsible, on behalf of the Parliament, for oversight of the state’s independent integrity agencies, including the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, the Victorian Ombudsman, the newly renamed Integrity Oversight Victoria and the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner. We on an annual basis as a committee undertake performance reviews of the integrity agencies as really the primary mechanism that Parliament has to assess whether and how integrity agencies are performing. Obviously sitting independent of the executive, it is the Parliament’s function, and the IOC has the responsibility on behalf of Parliament to exercise those functions.

The committee’s annual performance review this year has made 14 recommendations for improvements to the performance of the integrity agencies. We had public hearings where we heard from all the integrity agencies. This year the committee, the IOC, decided to take a particular look at the performance of the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission’s handling of complaints about police-perpetrated family violence. IBAC is the oversight body of Victoria Police, and part of its function is to assess how Victoria Police handles complaints. In particular there have been concerns raised about how IBAC has in the past handled complaints made by victim-survivors of family violence perpetrated by serving members of Victoria Police. What was then known as the Victorian Inspectorate, now Integrity Oversight Victoria, tabled a very significant report which I think was quite critical of IBAC’s handling of these matters in October 2022. Obviously it was under a former commissioner. It was the subject of some quite significant criticism.

David Davis interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Mr Davis, the fact that you have no capacity to listen and understand that we are talking about an exceptionally serious issue right now speaks volumes about how little you care about the victim-survivors of family violence in this state. The Victorian Inspector was damning of IBAC’s handling of life-threatening circumstances that the victim-survivors of police-perpetrated family violence faced. They released a report under the pseudonym of Emma, who detailed her story. Very bravely, Emma decided to front up to a public hearing and retell her story and told the IOC in these performance hearings – and it is detailed in this report – that there have been failures in the handling of these matters that have put the safety of members of our community at risk. They need to be continually monitored, and I am very pleased that Integrity Oversight Victoria is continuing its monitoring progress of both Victoria Police’s and IBAC’s handling of police-perpetrated family violence. Whilst I remain a member of the Integrity and Oversight Committee, I am not going to let this matter rest. I take it very seriously. No-one should be put in the position that the victim-survivors of these circumstances were, and we will continue to do our job to monitor them.

I have a couple of other points. The committee in its recommendations in the report made some recommendations about the fact that IBAC is not meeting its budget paper 3 performance measures for timeliness, and we think that they need to be reviewed. The other thing that the committee realised during this process was that the Parliamentary Committees Act 2003 does not require the independent integrity agencies to report to the Parliament on their implementation of recommendations that the committee makes. Government is required to respond to parliamentary committees’ work but not the independent integrity agencies. We recommended some changes to the Parliamentary Committees Act to make sure that independent integrity agencies respond within six months to the recommendations contained in reports such as this, and I commend the report to the house.

Motion agreed to.