Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video Ipp was startled to learn that a former head of the Indonesian commission was jailed for 18 years on a trumped-up murder charge, an effort to destroy the watchdog. He was released after five years and later received a presidential pardon. The anti-corruption commission refused to bend to the hostility of the political, police and judicial establishment. "A number of these extraordinarily powerful men were charged and found guilty. The cases involved tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. He and his team showed great courage and efficiency. I found it absolutely extraordinary. Whatever I had done looked like peanuts." And the Indonesian anti-corruption agency has gone from strength to strength since. Over 1000 public officials have been sentenced since it began operations in 2004. Of those, 122 were members of the national parliament. Among those is the parliament's former speaker, a position of real power in Indonesia. He was implicated in five bribery scandals over decades but always managed to evade any convictions. Until the agency came after him.

Loading He's now serving 15 years in jail for stealing millions from a contract for a national identity card. Twenty-five government ministers are keeping him company, together with at least 14 judges and 17 provincial governors. Even the chairman and treasurer of the ruling political party of a serving president, the Democratic Party of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, were sentenced to jail while their man was still in the presidential palace. The Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi - the commission for the eradication of corruption, known as KPK - has survived, grown, and lifted the confidence of a country of over a quarter-billion people. When the KPK is under siege for its rigour, ordinary people come to its defence, and not just on Twitter. Crowds have even formed human shields of thousands around its headquarters building to block attempted police raids.

"It's one of the biggest achievements of Indonesian democracy," says Philips Vermonte, the head of non-partisan Jakarta think tank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "The KPK remains the most trusted institution in Indonesia. The KPK is like a guard that's available to everybody. As far as I can see, sometimes a corruptor is caught from one faction, and then another. They don't care where the information comes from – they do their job." Corruption remains a big problem, of course. Yet it is being reversed gradually. The KPK has been remarkably effective by any measure but especially against its modest size. It has a total staff of 1500 and a complement of 400 investigators and prosecutors in the world's fourth most populous country. Former ICAC commissioner David Ipp, QC. Credit:Wolter Peeters While Hong Kong's ICAC has one staff member for about every 5000 of population, in Indonesia the ratio is one staff member for about every 170,000. For scale, that'd be like assigning a single staff member to clean up corruption in Townsville, for instance. The KPK has had to set priorities, and it has concentrated not on the petty but the profound. The KPK's performance has been "stellar" according to Transparency International. Last year it moved Indonesia into the top half of the countries of the world for the first time - number 89 of 180 on its corruption perception ranking. That's better than Thailand or the Philippines and in the same league as China.

And while Indonesia has moved from rock bottom to the global middle, Australia has slipped. From number seven to number 13. Where Australia was ahead of Britain, Germany and Norway 15 years ago, it now ranks as dirtier than all three. On this trajectory, Indonesia will surpass Australia some time in the next 15 years as it cleanses itself while Australia's rot spreads. This is a country that could well do with a little more humility, and a lot more effort. As David Ipp discovered, other countries, sometimes in unexpected places, have something to teach us.

One obvious solution to Australia's rising corruption problem is to create a national anti-corruption agency. While every Australian state has one, we still lack one at the federal level. Illustration: Jim Pavlidis Credit: The good news is that, after decades of denial, the three biggest political parties now support the idea. The Greens were first, Labor a slow second and last year the Coalition yielded to strong public demand, a reluctant last. The bad news is that there is no consensus about how it should be structured and the government's proposal, to be revived later this year, is a weak one. Indonesia's policymakers look to Australia for good models in many areas, but not in this.

"I’m maybe wrong but I don’t read much about investigations that are successfully prosecuted by either the NSW anti-corruption agency [or] in Victoria," says KPK deputy chair Laode Syarif, who earned his master's degree at Queensland University of Technology and his doctorate at Sydney University's Law School. The student has now surpassed his teacher. Loading Laode has won awards for his work. None is more sincere than the Molotov cocktail that was thrown at his home in January. The police say they have no leads. Laode doesn't expect they will ever find one. Just as they have made no progress in any of the assaults on KPK staff. After parliament, the police force is regarded as Indonesia's most corrupt institution. The KPK has taken on the task of purging both, and neither enjoys the experience. This is a deeply serious struggle. The KPK, so far, is winning. What can other countries learn from its effectiveness? Laode nominates five elements that he says have been central to its success. All would require Australia to really lift its sights. First is that it does not report to the head of government. While most such agencies answer to a president or prime minister, the KPK is accountable "only to the people" says Laode. How? It answers to a committee of parliament. "Sometimes challenging," says Laode, yet preferable to presidential oversight.

Second is that an anti-corruption agency needs to have not only strong powers to investigate, but also the power to prosecute. So it does not rely on the political willpower of an external prosecutor. This is a distinctive feature that sets the KPK apart from other agencies, including Australia's state-level bodies. Third is that any member of the public can bring a complaint to the KPK. It has hotlines and even an SMS service, with anonymity guaranteed. Fourth, whistleblowers and informants are protected by law and, when necessary, physically. The KPK maintains safehouses in secret locations to protect witnesses. It does not rely on the police.

Fifth, the KPK puts great emphasis on prevention. How? By continuously advocating and coordinating changes to government policy. Loading For instance, with the cooperation of President Joko Widodo, the national government increasingly conducts procurement online, transparently, minimising the opportunity for corruption. Almost 40 per cent of all national spending is done this way; the KPK is aiming for 100 per cent.

Laode also offers two hard-won lessons learned. One is that the commission should have been set up with the ability to protect itself and its staff, an in-house security unit. It cannot rely on the police. The other is that it needs a mechanism to better protect the reputation of the innocent, a lesson from the NSW ICAC experience, too. In the KPK's case, when it brings in witnesses for questioning, they are often seen as suspects, their reputations shattered. Laode likes the idea of issuing a formal, public declaration that specifies they are witnesses, not suspects. Other than that, if Laode is reappointed for another five-year term his big ambition is to double the size of the KPK's number of investigators and prosecutors and establish nine regional offices. The KPK prosecutes about 200 officials a year, with a near-perfect conviction rate, and it wants to do much more. An Australian integrity agency, if it is created at all, will be the result of negotiations in the Senate. While the government wants a watchdog with more gums than teeth, Jacqui Lambie spoke for the crossbenchers' ambition for one with "more teeth than Jaws". Australia would have trouble accepting the notion of a body with some of the KPK's powers, but there is an even bigger risk - creating a body with too few. As David Ipp says: "Having one with inadequate power is worse than having none. Because a Clayton's ICAC would create the illusion that it had investigated, found nothing", a cover for corruption rather than a cure. And an ailing Australia really needs a cure.

Peter Hartcher is political editor.