Defining Political Corruption
| Date | 01 August 1997 |
| Author | Mark Philp |
| Published date | 01 August 1997 |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.00090 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
De®ning Political Corruption
MARK PHILP1
I
In New South Wales in 1988, after more than 10 years of Labour Party rule, the
Liberal± National Party coalition won a majority in the Legislative Assembly
following a campaign which stressed the corrupt character of Labour's conduct
of political oce. In the ®rst legislative session the new Premier, Nick Greiner,
created the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), designed to
prevent a range of corrupt practices, including the exercise of illicit political
patronage. A further election in 1991, intended to increase the Government's
majority, resulted in a swing to Labour and the election of four independent
MPs. The Liberals remained in power, with 49 seats, facinga Labour opposition
with 46 seats. One of the four Independents generally supported the Govern-
ment, allowing Greiner to remain Premier. In October 1991 the other three
independent members reached an understanding with the Government. At the
same time, a Liberal MP, Tony Metherall (having resigned as a Minister in July
following tax oences), resigned from the Party, remaining in Parliament as an
independent. In January 1992, the Government's majority was further reduced
after a by-election. The Greiner administration, in consequence, could rely on
there being 47 votes for the government, and 47 against, with the balance lying
with the ®ve Independents of whom two (including Metherall) usually voted
with the government.
In April 1992, after behind the scenes negotiation with the Greiner admin-
istration, Metherall resigned from Parliament. On the same day he was
appointed to a well-paid position in the New South Wales public service.
Following a public outcry, the ICAC investigated the matter and found that,
pursuant to Section 8 of the ICAC act, Greiner and others had acted in a way
which involved the partial exercise of ocial functions, and constituted a breach
of trust, where this was sucient to give (under section 9c of the Act) reasonable
grounds for dismissing a public servant.2
#Political Studies Association 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 CowleyRoad, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
1My thanks are owed for comments on earlier drafts of this paper to my editor and fellow
contributors, and to Jerry Cohen, Liz Frazer, Barry Hindess, Doug McEachern, Philip Pettit and
Vicki Spencer. The ®nal version was written while I was a Visiting Research Fellow, in the
Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University.
2Section 8(1) identi®es criteria of necessary conditions for conduct being corrupt (such as,
adversely aecting the honest or impartial exercise of ocial functions, involving a breach of
public trust, or the misuse of information of material acquired in the course of ocial functions).
But these conditions do not constitute sucient conditions for conduct being corrupt unless
(under Section 9(1)) the conduct would constitute or involve, a criminal oence, a disciplinary
oence, or reasonable grounds for dispensing with the services of a public ocial. The
Commission, in eect, found that Greiner and the Minister for the Environment, Moore, had
met the criterion of partiality under section 8 and that of reasonable grounds for dismissal in
section 9.
Political Studies (1997), XLV, 436±462
Greiner and Moore commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court, but
resigned before the hearings began because of Parliamentary censure. In August
1992 the Court of Appeal agreed that conduct fell within Section 8 of the Act,
but, by a majority of 2 to 1, found that this conduct did not constitute
reasonable grounds for dismissal under section 9. The initial report of the
Commission was declared to be `without or in excess of jurisdiction, and is a
nullity'.3
In responding to the censure motion in the Legislative Assembly on 28 April
1992, Greiner argued:
Ultimately, if what was done was against the law, then all honourable
members need to understand that it is, for practical purposes, the death of
politics in this State. (. ..) What the Opposition and media have opened up
here is the very nature of politics itself ± that is, the con¯ict between the
demands of politics and the demands of public oce. Under the English
common law very serious obligations to act in the public interest are placed
on those elected to public oce, and yet our highest public ocials are at
the same time part of a political system which is about what is in many ways
a largely private interest in terms of winning or holding a seat. (.. .) I am
prepared to accept that community attitudes havechanged, and that what is
tolerated at one time is not acceptable at another. But every member needs
to understand that the standards that are implied in this censure of me
today are entirely new standards . . . (and) I am not sure, when honourable
members have considered them calmly in the bright light of day, that those
standards are going to produce a workable system of democracy in our
State .. .4
The ICAC responded with a report which again raised the question of how
corruption should be de®ned and whether the existing act had failed to draw a
necessary distinction between corrupt and improper conduct ± with the former
requiring that conduct either be knowingly corrupt, or involve some direct
personal bene®t to the public ocial involved. In its third report, the Commis-
sion recommended the implementation of selection criteria for public sector
recruitment based solely on merit.5Recommendations made in the wake of the
Metherall case had still not been acted on by the end of 1996.
The Metherall case is only one among many throughout the world demon-
strating the extent to which the investigation, prevention and prosecution of
corruption is profoundly in¯uenced not simply by how corruption is de®ned
but, more deeply, by how we are to understand the character of politics. Similar
questions have been raised, albeit with fewer results and declining interest, by
the Nolan Commission in Britain; while, in America parallel concerns have been
3See, the three ICAC reports, written by Ian Temby, the Commisioner: Report on Investigation
into the Metherall Resignation and Appointment (ICAC, Sydney, June 1992); Second Report on
Investigation into the Metherall Resignation and Appointment (ICAC, Sydney, September 1992);
Integrity in Public Sector Recruitment (ICAC, Sydney, March, 1993).
4ICAC, Report on Investigation into .. . Metherall, pp.92 ±3.
5See also the Discussion Paper, Recruitment of Former Members of Parliament to the Public
Service and Related Issues (ICAC, Sydney, October 1992) and Ian Temby's `Making government
accountable: the New South Wales experience', unpublished paper to Edith Cowan University,
W.A., 4.11.1994.
MAARRKKPHHIILLPP437
#Political Studies Association, 1997
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