“Second,there are vast differences between the functions of the commission and a court. Those differences are readily accessible,and there has been much written about those vast differences. To describe us as a kangaroo court is not just misleading,but untrue.”
Rushton,whose term as commissioner expires in coming months,also warned that such comments risked eroding public trust in governments.
“To make uninformed comments that this commission is a kangaroo court has the real capacity to undermine the commission’s work,and just as importantly,public confidence in public administration,” Rushton said.
Morrison last month indicated he intended toabandon his plans for a federal ICAC and blamed Labor for not supporting the government’s proposal,unamended,in the previous parliament.
“It requires painstaking investigations to recreate the circumstances that previously existed that led to the suspected corrupt conduct,” he said.
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“Occasionally,there is misguided and unfounded criticism of one or more in our community of the commission’s powers and its work.
“Whatever the motive or the purpose behind such criticism may be,a proper understanding of the legal conditions,processes of the oversight safeguards,will reveal to the misguided critic that he or she is simply wrong,” Hall said.
Morrison has sought to capitalise on the public downfall of the popular Berejiklian,insisting that the ICAC deliberately humiliated the former premier.
“We have seen … recordings of private conversations detailed intimate things that were paraded around in the media. What was that about?” Morrison said late last year. “Was that about shaming Gladys Berejiklian? I thought that was awful.”
Berejiklian resigned voluntarily last year once it emerged that she was the focus of an expanded ICAC inquiry.
“Gladys was put in a position of actually having to stand down and there was no findings of anything,” Morrison said. “I don’t call that justice. What I saw was a pile-on.”
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