And the demise of a third NSW Liberal Premier over an ICAC investigation has also prompted fresh questions over Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s promise - more than 1000 days ago - to introduce a Commonwealth Integrity Commission.
Ms Berejiklian is the third Liberal Premier to lose their job after an ICAC-related matter,following Nick Greiner and Barry O’Farrell.
The ICAC announced Friday it was examining whether Ms Berejiklian breached the public trust or allowed or encouraged the occurrence of corrupt conduct by her former long-term boyfriend,disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire.
The outgoing Premiertook aim at the ICAC’s timing with NSW reaching a critical point in the pandemic and beginning to emerge from lengthy lockdown as vaccination targets are reached.
But the University of Sydney’s Professor Twomey,one of the country’s foremost constitutional law experts,said she was surprised at criticism of the anti-corruption body.
“This shows that ICAC was acting regardless of the circumstances at the time,that it was acting on the basis of what it had before it. I would have thought in relation to any integrity body that they should act without taking into account the criticism of any political party,” she said.