A promise to consider something after the election is not a promise. It’s time to get real on corruption |
A promise to consider something after the election is not a promise. It’s time to get real on corruption
June 3, 2026 — 5:00am
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“I am no longer satisfied that IBAC has the powers it needs to do its job in full.”
During Monday’s press conference, it seemed as though Premier Jacinta Allan was inhabiting a parallel universe.
A universe where Labor governments never rejected or ignored calls going back a decade for the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission to be given additional powers. A universe where the Allan government did not shut down parliamentary debate in February on a Greens proposal for follow-the-money laws of the kind the premier is now spruiking.
This week Allan finally acknowledged, to her credit, that corruption watchdogs might need better tools to deal with the multibillion-dollar scandal at the heart of Labor’s Big Build. The acknowledgment came two years after The Age first published appalling revelations of misconduct on government worksites.
In the universe most of us live in, serious questions remain. Above all, we must ask: if a government promises to have a committee report back on something after an election, is it actually a promise? We’ll report back on the answer to that once we’ve received advice, if we’re re-elected.
Further review of the kind announced on Monday might be understandable if we hadn’t already seen a parliamentary inquiry last........