Wednesday, 16 August 2023

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Integrity and Oversight Committee

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

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (10:06): I rise to speak on the Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2020/21: Focus on Witness Welfare. The report was published in October 2022 by the Integrity and Oversight Committee (IOC). It is in many ways the culmination of a number of years of work since 2019 on how we can better support witnesses.

Firstly, I just want to go to the IOC’s general role. They are responsible for monitoring and reviewing the performance of the duties and functions of the four Victorian integrity agencies: the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner, the Victorian Inspectorate and the Victorian Ombudsman. They play a really important role in making sure these integrity agencies themselves provide accountability, accountability to the Parliament.

I would like to acknowledge up front former members of the committee – I spoke some time ago about the members of the committee, but these are former members of the committee – the member for Melton; the former member for Altona the Honourable Jill Hennessy MP; a member for Eastern Victoria Region Harriet Shing; and the former member for Ringwood Dustin Halse. They paid particular attention to this report.

In terms of the management and the welfare of witnesses and others involved in integrity investigations, there has been a great deal of discussion both in the media and in the Parliament about how we can do that better. It should always be an objective of integrity agencies and the broader Parliament to look after the welfare of individuals involved in what are really trying and difficult circumstances. Anyone who has been part of a tribunal, part of a court process or part of any investigatory process would know it is a really difficult thing to be involved in. Witness welfare, which provides a light on how the state can run better and how organisations can run better, should be provided with that appropriate support.

The agencies that were being interrogated in these processes appeared before the committee. They provided written submissions and, like with many processes of committees in this place, responded to questions on notice. There were also a number of other witnesses – expert witnesses in the field but also those people who had been through the processes of these committees.

The committee’s review says that there were some really good processes in place but also that those processes could be improved. They came up with 16 recommendations, which are included in this report: seven for IBAC, six for the Ombudsman and three for the Victorian Inspectorate. I am going to outline some of these recommendations for the house. This is something that I know we are considering across the whole of the Parliament.

Recommendation 2 goes to procedural guidelines for holding public examinations and making sure that IBAC – because this goes to IBAC’s operations – provides a written report of its reasons and an outline of why it would hold public examination and information about those procedures and guidelines. This is a really important thing, that they are able to be accountable for their actions.

Recommendation 4 is that IBAC put forward a special report – and table it in the Parliament – on investigations in which public examinations were held, providing a description of the exceptional circumstances and the public interest that led to it holding those public examinations. This goes to the fundamental risks that a person endures in terms of their reputation being damaged, remembering that these are not courts that are making findings on individuals of guilt or innocence – these are examinations to make sure we get better outcomes in terms of our public service and our public sector. The committee also asked that IBAC provide data on these examinations and also data on the witnesses and complaints received over the reporting periods.

I take you to recommendation 6 now, again for IBAC to consider and for the government to consider, which is around consultants and making sure that there are periodic check-ins on the mental health of witnesses that have appeared. That is in the time when IBAC has made a report but has not publicised it. We know that is often a considerable period of time, and that considerable period means that we need to look after those witnesses who have been publicly examined.

I can see that I am running out of time to get to the next set of recommendations, but I look forward to being able to discuss those at another time.