This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The head of the New South Wales police anti-corruption watchdog has claimed that the state’s police minister, Troy Grant, improperly sought to influence staffing decisions in order to placate the police union.

In an explosive NSW budget estimates hearing on Thursday, the head of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, former supreme court justice Michael Adams, alleged Grant had told him not to hire senior officers from the former Police Integrity Commission.

Adams said that after the LECC was formed last year the police minister told him he “should not employ” any senior executives from the PIC because the NSW Police Association had “taken exception” to the former police watchdog and that it would “not be good”.

“I told him I didn’t think that was a proper position to adopt and later wrote [to Grant] to explain why such a decision would have been improper,” Adams told the hearing.

Describing the approach as “improper”, Adams said it was a “fundamental point of employment in the public service that it is done on merit and merit alone”.

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“A blanket assertion of an inappropriate appointment because someone happens to have done duties in another institution [was something] I regarded as a way of bypassing legislative safeguard for independent public service,” he said.

The LECC was created last year to replace the PIC, the ombudsman and the NSW Crime Commission. It was established following the recommendations of a report from former shadow attorney general Andrew Tink into police oversight, and has responsibility for investigating serious police misconduct and corruption, and overseeing complaints handling.

Thursday’s sensational claim was delivered with Grant sitting at the same table, and the police minister angrily rejected the accusation.

He described it as “completely untrue” and accused Adams of making a “vexatious claim” against him because Grant had denied a request for a LECC officer to travel to an overseas conference.

He said the accusation was “offensive and disappointing” and that such conduct if it occurred would be “seriously improper”.

“I did have discussions in relation to the employment of people in the LECC in regards to the position and attitude of the Police Association in NSW,” he said.

“[They] were very clear and said they did not believe anybody employed in the PIC should be employed in LECC. I did not support that position, I was aware of their position and informed the chief commissioner of their position but at no stage did I ever endorse it.”

He said he had merely been trying to assist Adams’ “situational awareness” in the new role and accused Adams of making a “vexatious” claim against him because he had refused a request for an executive from the LECC to travel to a conference in Washington last year.

When Adams said during the hearing that he had eventually paid for the trip himself and later sought reimbursement, Grant said he would refer that reimbursement to the LECC’s chair.

It’s not the first time in its short history that the LECC has clashed with the minister.

Earlier this year Adams delivered a damning assessment of the government’s overhaul of police oversight, saying a severe funding shortage had forced the agency to ignore more than 50 integrity complaints that “warranted investigation” in the past seven months.

But Thursday’s extraordinary budget estimates hearing placed the acrimony between the LECC’s leadership and the police minister directly into the public glare.

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Adams also alleged that the “same request” not to hire PIC executives had been made by a member of Grant’s staff to an employee at the Department of Justice responsible for helping establish the LECC.

That person, Amber Williams, later became the chief executive of the LECC. Adams said she found it to be “an embarrassing request” and that she “did her best to avoid complying, not altogether successfully”.

Adams claimed that Grant subsequently tried to convince him not to hire Williams for the CEO job at the LECC because he “did not regard her as competent”. Adams said he “drew the conclusion” that Grant viewed her as incompetent because “she declined to follow the suggestion about employment”.

Grant also vehemently rejected that assertion, saying he had simply wanted “proper due process” to occur.

The PIC had a turbulent relationship with the NSW Police Association. When it was axed the president of the association Scott Weber said police officers had “lost faith in the PIC for a long period of time”.