The further delay of the New South Wales anti-corruption watchdog’s report into the conduct of former premier Gladys Berejiklian is a “black mark” against the agency, a former supreme court judge has said.
Anthony Whealy KC, a former assistant commissioner at the Independent Commission Against Corruption and a longtime defender of the watchdog, has launched a strident criticism of its handling of the Operation Keppel investigation into Berejiklian, saying the repeated delays were “unfair” to the former premier.
Speaking on the ABC on Thursday, Whealy also took aim at the commissioner tasked with producing the investigation, Ruth McColl SC, and suggested the finalisation of the report could be taken over by another member of the watchdog.
“They’ve not been able to get that commissioner to perform with what I would call a moderate standard of efficiency,” Whealy said.
“There’s a chief commissioner and two assistant commissioners, quite apart from Ms McColl. They could take it over and just finalise it … that’s my suggestion.”
The criticism came after Icac released a statement on Wednesday saying it may not finalise the report before the March state election, blaming the complexity of the probe.
Comment was sought from Icac and McColl. Both declined to comment on Whealy’s claims.
Operation Keppel began as an investigation into the former Wagga Wagga MP Daryl Maguire, before widening to include Berejiklian after details of her “close personal relationship” with him were revealed in 2020.
Berejiklian resigned as premier in 2021 after Icac revealed it was investigating whether she broke the law by failing to report his alleged conduct.
The former premier has repeatedly denied any alleged wrongdoing, including during her grilling at a fresh set of hearings in October 2021.
McColl had been expected to hand down Icac’s findings last year, but the date has since been delayed on a number of occasions.
Whealy told the ABC the long delay was “unfair” to both Berejiklian and Maguire, and questioned Icac’s statement on Thursday which blamed the delay on the complex nature of the investigation.
“While it’s a very important report, it’s not a difficult one at all,” he said.
He dismissed Icac’s argument that the investigation had involved hundreds of pages of submissions and evidence, saying it was “the case with every decision a judge or a tribunal has to make”.
“It’s true that to get to a final point of determining whether any behaviour fell below proper standards … can be a difficult [decision] to make, it’s not a decision that takes all that length of time,” he said.
While Whealy said he was not overly concerned about the failure to release the final report before the election, he said the delays were a “black mark” against the agency and could affect public confidence in the watchdog.
“It’ll leave a nasty taste in the mouth that reflects back on the criticism of Icac in NSW, of being a kangaroo court. What we’re concerned about is delay and the impact delay has on public perceptions of efficacy of a public corruption body.”
