Queensland corruption fighter Doug Drummond says CMC changes 'very dangerous, very worrying'

Updated

Changes to Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) are designed to spare the Newman Government political embarrassment, a top Queensland corruption fighter says.

Doug Drummond QC, the special prosecutor who helped convict former police chief Terry Lewis and dozens of others in the wake of the 1989 Fitzgerald Inquiry and later served as a CMC commissioner, told the ABC the reforms would leave the door open to the kind of corruption uncovered by the ICAC inquiry in New South Wales.

He claimed the amendments to the Crime and Misconduct Act were designed to allow the ruling Liberal National Party (LNP) to raise campaign funds unimpeded by the attentions of an anti-corruption body.

"It's quite obviously not intended to encourage corruption, but it's equally clearly intended not to impede the Government in its many activities, including its fund-raising activities," Mr Drummond said.

The changes posed "the real risk of money, moneyed interests acquiring benefits which they shouldn't legitimately acquire" in Queensland.

A special amendment to extend by another six months the term of LNP-appointed acting chairman Ken Levy while he was under police investigation was "extraordinary" and could undermine the probe, he said, a claim supported by a CMC commissioner closely involved in the matter.

Dr Levy's term was due to run out tomorrow.

Under the changes enacted last week, the Queensland Government has removed the need for bipartisan support for the appointment of the CMC chairman, raised the threshold for complaints and given the Attorney-General control of the body's research program. It is also changing the name of the body to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC).

There's a serious attempt underway to make sure that the CCC doesn't embarrass the Government. Doug Drummond QC

When it announced the reform plan last year the Government said it wanted to "depoliticise" the CMC. But Mr Drummond said the changes had the opposite effect.

"There's a serious attempt underway to make sure that the CCC doesn't embarrass the Government," he said.

The abandonment of the need for the Opposition to approve the appointment of the body's chairman, which had been "passed off as taking the politics out of the CMC", was "just the reverse", he said.

"The only point of having a corruption watchdog over government and the public sector ... is that it must be independent of government control - I think we've lost that.

"I don't see how you can avoid the conclusion that whoever is appointed will be seen by many Queenslanders as politically tainted."

Former commissioner says government 'prejudged' Levy

Acting CMC chairman Dr Levy is facing allegations he misled the parliamentary committee that oversees the CMC, a criminal offence in Queensland.

Dr Levy told the committee he had had no contact with government over an article he wrote in The Courier-Mail newspaper last year praising new anti-bikie laws, but Premier Campbell Newman's chief media adviser testified otherwise.

A special parliamentary committee was convened to investigate and the matter has now shifted to the hands of the police.

Mr Newman sacked the main oversight committee that brought the discrepancies in Dr Levy's evidence to light.

This is [a] temporary stop-gap measure to allow a transition between the current Acting Chairman and whoever is appointed the permanent chairman. Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie

"What the Dr Levy episode suggests to me is here we have a government that will behave with complete ruthlessness when its perceived interests are at stake or challenged," Mr Drummond said.

"You've got a committee of the parliament solemnly investigating whether Dr Levy is fit to be chairman of the commission at the same time as the Government puts legislation through the Parliament saying he's fit to be chairman.

"There's a powerful argument that the Parliament has condoned any misconduct that Dr Levy may have engaged in, if that turns out to be the case - and it would be a perfectly complete answer to any attempt to sack him."

Philip Nase, a CMC commissioner who also gave evidence about Dr Levy's contact with government, agreed that the extension of the chairman's term "may indicate (Premier) Newman and (Attorney-General Jarrod) Bleijie have prejudged the outcome of the allegations against Levy".

In a statement to the ABC, Mr Nase said: "At the time, the Attorney-General explained the reason for the decision to remove the committee by analogy to a decision by a judge to remove a jury on the ground of bias.

"The problem with the analogy to an impartial judge is that it breaks down if Newman and Bleijie are not impartial, and in those circumstances the decision to replace the committee becomes little more than an unprincipled exercise of power."

CCC will be 'modern, unmuzzled watchdog': Bleijie

Mr Drummond, a former Federal Court Judge and a CMC commissioner between 2005 and 2008, said he had found the body had poor management, was set in its ways and in need of a shake-up.

But he said the changes were "very dangerous, very worrying".

The CCC must now seek the approval of the Attorney-General annually for its research program.

Mr Bleijie criticised the CMC in 2012 when it launched a desktop review of the regulation of political donations. He said the subject was not an issue in Queensland.

This is [a] temporary stop-gap measure to allow a transition between the current Acting Chairman and whoever is appointed the permanent chairman. Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie

The CMC had earlier found no wrongdoing by Mr Newman after allegations were made during the 2012 election campaign about election funding irregularities.

In a statement to the ABC, Mr Bleijie said the new CCC would be "a modern, unmuzzled watchdog that will fearlessly and effectively tackle serious crime and corruption in Queensland, something the old Crime and Misconduct Commission was unable to do".

Mr Bleijie said no research topics were off limits for the CCC, and he denied that extending Dr Levy's term impeded any future prosecution of him.

"This is [a] temporary stop-gap measure to allow a transition between the current Acting Chairman and whoever is appointed the permanent chairman," he said.

The ABC has obtained a copy of the CMC's response to the Newman Government review that prompted the reforms, which was never made available to the public.

In the document the body argued that "the CMC's research function - and its independence from executive government - must be retained".

It also warned that proposed measures to screen out frivolous complaints were "unlikely to generate the desired outcomes" and would impact on all categories of complaint, not just the less serious ones.

The CMC did not comment on the removal of the bipartisan support requirement for the body's chairman, as this was not one of the review's recommendations.

Do you know more? Email investigations@abc.net.au

Topics: corruption, law-crime-and-justice, state-parliament, parliament, government-and-politics, qld

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