It’s been noted by some keen observers that in Strickland’s introduction, he explains that ICAC chief Ann Vanstone gave him an authority to publish in his report “information that would otherwise constitute an offence” against Section 54 of the current ICAC Act. The ominous “there’s more to come out” line refers to what is now likely to unfold when parliament’s Crime and Public Integrity Policy Committee, or CPIPC – starts to unpack some of Strickland’s work. These hobbled ICAC, stripping its powers to investigate misconduct or maladministration and depositing these in the lap of the state’s Ombudsman.Īs InDaily’s David Washington reported at the time, the changes not only strictly narrowed the definition of corruption, they also added significant protections for politicians from ICAC’s future, and even retrospective, reach.
This is a reference to changes rushed unanimously through both houses of state Parliament in September 2021, barely months before the March 2022 state election. “If anyone wants to understand why 69 members of parliament across four parties voted unanimously to change ICAC, it’s because of its handling of the Hanlon case.” Poor old Vanstone has had to clean up the mess left to her. It was initially referred to ICAC by former Liberal Attorney-General Vickie Chapman after she received an anonymous complaint.Īs one senior source put it to me this week: “We’re not idiots. Many MPs in both houses of state parliament remain angry at ICAC’s handling of the case. The Strickland review marks the end of any further official probe into ICAC’s methods – it was referred to the Office of the Inspector by Labor’s Attorney-General Kyam Maher.īut our state parliament hasn’t finished with it yet, not by a long shot. The Hanlon case is unlikely to die a quiet death.
Strickland cited “ICAC’s failure to make proper inquiries, including by obtaining legal advice, about its authority to conduct and the legality of conducting investigations in Germany” and ICAC’s failure to tell the DPP about such matters.įormer Attorney-General Vickie Chapman passed on an anonymous complaint about former Renewal SA boss John Hanlon. Importantly, Strickland’s review exonerates the current ICAC Commissioner Ann Vanstone KC from any responsibility for an investigation conducted under her predecessor, Bruce Lander KC. The review found ICAC’s investigators in Germany broke international law and then ICAC failed to disclose this to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who was running the shambolic, failed case against Hanlon. He found maladministration at an “institutional level” with the ICAC investigation, with “substantial mismanagement … resulting in incompetence or negligence”. Strickland’s report into the events that contributed to that spectacular collapse – one that has already cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars and may yet cost much more – is damning.
Studio habits of mind in an exhibition articles free#
The review of the “investigation and prosecution of Mr John Hanlon” was the work of a respected Sydney barrister Philip Strickland SC in his role as Inspector of ICAC.Īs InDaily reported this week, Hanlon was twice prosecuted after an ICAC investigation, but walked free both times after the Director of Public Prosecution’s cases “collapsed in spectacular fashion”. Has it become a name for an entity that might as well not exist? The report’s findings of ICAC’s maladministration and “incompetence or negligence” raise a question that has been staring us in the face for a couple of years now. The name Vandelay Industries springs to mind when reading a 203-page report tabled in parliament this week into our Independent Commission Against Corruption’s failed investigation and prosecution of former Renewal SA boss, John Hanlon.
And yet the name “Vandelay” became Costanza’s go-to device when he needed to conjure up a plausible name, such as for a phony job or a favourite non-existent author or friend, such as Art Vandelay, an “importer-exporter”. He tells her he had been interviewed for a job as a salesman by Vandelay Industries, a firm that makes “latex and latex-related products”. In the episode “The Boyfriend”, Costanza lies to a US employment officer in an attempt to get a 13-week extension to his unemployment benefits.
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