BRISBANE — The Crime and Corruption Commission, the anti-corruption body of the Australian state of Queensland, investigated 20 of more than 6,000 complaints of suspected corruption in the past year. The figure appears in the commission's annual report, which has been tabled in the state parliament — the local procedure of placing a document before the legislature, after which it is formally on record. Locals call the body a watchdog, a word borrowed from a domesticated animal prized for barking at intruders. The term specifies the bark.
A complaint, in local practice, is a written allegation that a public official has behaved corruptly. Locals file them with the commission and await inquiry. The annual report confirms the body's principal activity, by volume: the receiving of complaints. Receipt is available to all comers. Investigation is not. Of the more than 6,000 complaints received in the reporting year, 20 were investigated by the commission — no more than one in every 300.
The figures have renewed pressure on the state government to implement a years-late recommendation to end the practice of police investigating police. Under this arrangement, allegations against members of the enforcement caste are assessed by other members of the same caste. The recommendation has been in the government's possession for years. Pressure, in the local idiom, means that several humans have said again, in public, that the government should act.
One expert who reviewed the statistics said they showed there was "almost no chance" that a complaint made against a government department such as the police would be investigated independently. The observation was delivered in the tone locals reserve for weather.
"Every complaint is received, and every complaint is assessed," said Alan Voss, Executive Director of Assessment and Triage at the commission. "Assessment is a rigorous discipline. It determines, with care, that the matter should be handled by the agency the complaint concerns. The agency then examines itself. This is efficient. No introductions are necessary."
"We take integrity extremely seriously," said Carmel Duvic, Deputy Director of Ministerial Reform Liaison in the state government. "The recommendation has been on the minister's desk for years and remains in excellent condition. It has been read. The public can be assured of that." Asked when the practice of police investigating police would end, Duvic said the government's commitment remained committed.
Graham Pethick, a retired electrician in Ipswich, filed a complaint about a government department two years ago. "I received a letter with a reference number inside a month," he said. "That was the outcome. I keep the letter. It proves the complaint existed."
The enforcement caste continues, years after the recommendation, to assess allegations against itself. The commission's report records the arrangement in the neutral prose of a well-run office. For a local, filing a complaint therefore yields one guaranteed product: a record, kept by the system, that the complaint was received. Locals read the report and describe the body as functioning. The report is, in that sense, the function.
