Legal columnist HUGH SELBY muses about the optics of a cosy arrangement that allowed a past CEO of the ACT Integrity Commission to be retained on the books to the tune of some $113,000 for post-resignation services. 

Just yesterday I overheard a group of retired folk at the next table in my favourite café talking about wayward conduct and our inability as humans to avoid it.

The first voice was quoting from this week’s report by the Ombudsman into the cosy arrangement that allowed a past CEO of our Integrity Commission to be retained on the books to the tune of some $113,000 for post-resignation services. 

This was made possible by an agreement between him and the Commissioner, Michael Adams KC, with no outside scrutiny as to the scope of works, or whether it could be done for a better price by other means, such as a third party, other staff, or even the incoming CEO.

“You’ll love this. The commissioner is just a wee bit upset at being taken to task. He said that hiring the experienced former CEO to help the incoming CEO was a ‘no brainer’. And he went on: ‘I have no doubt any reasonable public scrutiny would regard my appointment of him as a consultant… in the circumstances as not only entirely proper but a sensible response to the problem the commission faced’.” 

One of the group slowly reached down to her bag and brought up a small book from which she read: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. As said in Isaiah, ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts’ ”. 

“Nothing”, she said, “has changed in the several thousand years since those words were recorded in the Old and New Testaments. That’s from Matthew”.

Whereupon another of the group said: “But it has changed, just a little, because we have the remarks of Lord Acton from the late 19th century. Now I’ll grant you that the Emperor Donnie and his courtiers have not learned and followed: ‘The will of the people cannot make just that which is unjust’, nor have they grasped that ‘power tends to corrupt’ – but that’s because they see untrammelled self-interest as a virtue, when outsiders see it as corrupt”. 

“Yes”, said the third, who appeared to be able to work on solving a crossword, eat cake and contribute to the conversation all at once. 

“What is corrupt through one set of eyes is common sense in the eyes of another, and an unremarkable commonplace for a third set of eyes. It’s all a matter of perspective. Self-interest and arrogance really fog up the lenses.”

The fourth member of the group was knitting what appeared to be booties for a grandchild or even a great grandchild. I rather liked the colours, especially because they raised the spirits on this overcast, wet cold, Canberra day. 

Said she, speaking as her hands moved the needles: “When we’re spending our own money we can give favours to whoever we please. Some may regard our choices as unfair, but that’s life. 

“It starts with how the kids are allowed to divvy up the strawberries. Do we dictate the results, or do we encourage them to work out a fair approach? Do they learn that the law of the jungle will prevail, or that each will have the same number regardless of their age and size, or some other formula?

“Whatever the approach, the number and size of the strawberries on each plate reflects an approach seen and heard by all those present.

“When we have the power to spend public money then we are obliged to follow processes that show to all the world that there was no favouritism, no pursuit of self -interest, in that spend.

“Oh damn. I’ve dropped a stitch”.

There was a dark-red strawberry left on my shortcake. I’d paid for it. It was mine to look at, to eat or not eat. Not so for the Integrity Commissioner or his then CEO. They decided to divvy up our strawberries to their mutual advantage (and quite possibly ours, too) without proper process. 

The Ombudsman’s report includes the lengthy, very lengthy, responses from the Commissioner and the former CEO to the problems identified by the Ombudsman.

Methinks they do protest too much. Respectfully, they both miss the point that the process that they followed meant that the appearance of “self-interest” and “self-regard” could not be dispelled. 

Had they taken the time – and they had many months to do so – to have added full timely disclosure and some form of independent review to the proposal to give the CEO post-resignation work, then this mid 2025 criticism of what was happening during 2022 would not have been necessary. 

Hindsight, as we all know, is so clever. The Commissioner and the former CEO would have done much better to have simply said, this year: “We’re sorry. At the time we didn’t turn our minds sufficiently to the disclosure detail. We should have. Good intentions are not enough. Let this be a lesson for everyone”.

They haven’t done that. They won’t. They can’t see beyond the “no brainer” that the work needed to be done and that the former CEO was an ideal person to do it. 

The ancient words of Isaiah and Matthew ring out. Still true. I ate the lone strawberry with no guilt, no regrets, and no suggestion of impropriety.

The Ombudsman’s report is here.

Former barrister Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs. His free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.