Integrity and Public Administration

Integrity and Accountability in Queensland

The Institute has a submission to Premier Bligh’s Review on Integrity and Accountability in Queensland. While addressing the institional reform focus that could be introduced to enhance the quality of integrity and accountability in Queensland’s public governance, the Institute also argues that the core integrity challenge is behavioural rather than institutional in character.  In this respect the key issue is the probity of accountability relationships between Ministers, governments, the public service, and the parliament on the one hand, and between governments and the voting public on the other.  Discussing the issues of

• The Social Purpose of Integrity Agencies
• Addressing the Governance challenges
  
• Public Confidence and the need for Professionalism in Public Administration
  
• A Culture of Transparency and Accountability
  
• Whistleblowing
  
• Addressing the Civics Education Challenge

the  Institute's submission concludes that crafting of a culture of accountable, transparent, competent and responsive public administration appear to provide the best possible conditions for achieving integrity in government.  The leadership, commitment and example of the Queensland government and Parliament is fundamental to the task of developing and institutionalising such a culture.

Read the full submission.

Victorian Review of the Members of Parliament (Register of Interests) Act 1978

The Institute was invited to make a submission to, and subsequently to appear at the public hearings of, the Victorian Law Reform Committee's Review of parliamentarians' code of conduct and register of interests.

Beyond Codes of Conduct: ‘Ethical Competence’ and Public Trust

This workshop conducted by Howard Whitton, will make extensive use of case examples and video-scenarios developed for strengthening managers’ diagnostic, decision-making, and advocacy skills. It will build on participants’ experience to show how ‘ethical competence’ can be learned, and managed so as to strengthen public trust in public institutions. The learning method displayed in the workshop has been tested by Howard in eight countries in various UN, OECD, U4 and DfID public sector governance projects.

See the forthcoming events for more details.

Understanding Integrity Agencies

On 24 July Chris Aulich and Roger Wettenhall organised a highly successful workshop on ‘Understanding Integrity Agencies’. It included presentations from: high profile practitioners from integrity agencies such as

• Dr Helen Watchirs (ACT Human Rights and Discrimination Commissioner)
• John McMillan (Commonwealth Ombudsman)
• Bob Stensholt (Chair of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, Victoria)
• and Alexandra Mills (Independent Commission Against Corruption, Sydney)

politicians such as

• Meredith Hunter (ACT Greens);
  

and, academics such as

• Professor Brian Head (University of Queensland)
• Prof John Power (University of Melbourne)
• Professor Tim Prenzler (Griffith)
• Professor Scott Prasser (ACU)
• Professor Ian Thynne (Charles Darwin)
  
• and of course Roger and Chris.
  

The proceedings will be published as a special issue of a journal. Moreover, it was given the concentration of academics at UC researching in the integrity area in both developed and developing areas that an Institute Research Programme in ‘Integrity in Public Administration’ was established.