Recently the Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, announced a decision to establish a new government anti-corruption watchdog - a new independent commission, alongside the current Commonwealth Ombudsman. But what sort of body will it be, and why do we need it?

Some commentators have welcomed the announcement as setting a new national standard - that all governments should have at least two independent investigation bodies: an ombudsman to deal with administrative complaints, and a standing royal commission to deal with corruption. Indeed, NSW now has three bodies - the ombudsman, independent commission against corruption, and the police integrity commission.

But if we look at the federal decision, there are two quite separate issues mixed up here. First, there is a question about who guards the guards. The Attorney-General has focused on problems over which investigation bodies get to use federal phone tapping powers, refusing to authorise phone tapping by the Victorian Ombudsman, in support of the Victorian Opposition's campaign that only a new anti-corruption commission should have such power. But apart from the politics of supporting the state Liberals against the Bracks government, the federal government's idea appears to be a new federal body to take charge of these sensitive phone-tapping activities, which could also then be used - quote - "if necessary" to investigate corruption. Mr Ruddock has suggested this agency might resemble the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, who investigates complaints against our national security services. But are we then really talking about an anti-corruption investigator, or a new 'inspector-general of surveillance'? Wouldn't this really be a new privacy protector, taking over the supervision of phone tap warrants from the Commonwealth Ombudsman? In which case, why not trust the nation's ombudsmen with phone tap powers after all, just like other major investigation agencies - at least in appropriately serious cases?

The second issue gets back to basics - who should investigate corruption, and in particular, can ombudsmen do it? The arguments that they can't, reflect the reality that until recent years, Australian ombudsmen were reactive, even though they had most of the necessary legal power. But then neither did anyone else. Things change, and the federal government itself has already thrashed through this issue. In 1996, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended exactly what the headlines now say - a separate watchdog to handle administrative complaints and anti-corruption work against Federal Police. But the government did not accept that recommendation, preferring instead, for the last 7 years, to let the Commonwealth Ombudsman continue to oversight these issues, even without the necessary resources.

So in fact the federal position for the last 7 years, and the Victorian government's current position, aren't so unreasonable. There is no reason in principle why an ombudsman cannot also function as an anti-corruption commission. In many countries, particularly developing countries with new constitutions, these bodies are being created as one - as integrity commissions with wide-ranging responsibility over corruption and defective administration, wherever these might be found, using whatever information and tools to do the job. This is the model that Australia needs to look at more closely, to achieve a critical mass of skills and experience in such bodies, and make sure the anti-corruption effort isn't unnecessarily fragmented. The Commonwealth and now the Victorian Ombudsman have been moving in this direction... the've just got a long way to go. Getting the Ombudsman into the role of a general integrity commission faster, is one option that needs to be considered alongside the familiar knee-jerk solution of establishing a new body.

The Commonwealth Government needs to review and update its integrity systems, but not in the ad hoc way that seems to be proposed. On one hand, we probably do need what is suggested in the Attorney-General's fine print - a better way to monitor the use of surveillance powers like phone tapping. But we also need to look more broadly at the best strategy for maximising skills beyond that and the capacity in our public integrity watchdogs, before any decision to extend an already piecemeal system. The answer may be a National Integrity Commission that incorporates, rather than competes with the current Ombudsman role; that has the additional intelligence, research and investigative resources to deal with corruption properly; and which reports to the people through a parliamentry system, not through the government of the day. It may be time for a next-generation approach to ensuring integrity in federal government, rather than recycling any of the old options.