Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Integrity and Oversight Committee

Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2020/21: Focus on Witness Welfare

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (10:24): I rise to contribute to the Integrity and Oversight Committee report Performance of the Victorian Integrity Agencies 2020/21: Focus on Witness Welfare. I should say at the outset that I was the initial chair of the IOC in the 59th Parliament. I think I was the chair for about 18 months until I moved on to another role. I have got to say that the committee I worked with worked well together and was a cross-section of the representation in our Parliament.

Witness welfare is a very important issue and had been raised previously. In my previous life as secretary of the ambulance union I had members that had to present before IBAC, and I know the distress that they went through as witnesses – and not as hostile witnesses but as witnesses to support investigations. I know the effects that those procedures had on them – the stress levels, the doubt of their involvement in whatever was being investigated at the time. So I can totally understand why witness welfare was an issue that needed to be investigated and reviewed by the committee.

I am pleased to say that obviously the committee is responsible for monitoring and reviewing the performances of the duties and functions of our four integrity agencies, and that is IBAC, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission, of course the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner, the Victorian Inspectorate and the Victorian Ombudsman. It reviewed the performance of these agencies through 2020 and 2021, focusing on their management of the welfare of witnesses. Obviously, there had been some previous incidents involving witnesses and the welfare of some of those and some other concerns in regard to their health and welfare as an outcome of their involvement in investigations.

This report made around about 16 recommendations across three of the agencies. I think there were seven recommendations towards IBAC, three recommendations towards the Victorian Inspectorate and six recommendations made towards the Victorian Ombudsman. I am pleased to say that all of the agencies have been very positive about the recommendations and have I believe committed to implementing those recommendations and to improving some of their practices, procedures and policies in regard to the handling of witnesses and the witness welfare issues that arose through this investigation.

I should make reference to the secretariat. These committees do not work well without the great support of the secretariat, and I know in my time as the chair I could not thank the secretariat enough. Their work was incredible. I have got to acknowledge Sean Coley, the committee manager; Dr Stephen James, senior research officer; Tom Hvala, research officer; Holly Brennan, complaints and research assistant; Maria Marasco, committee administrative officer; and Bernadette Pendergast, committee administrative officer. As I say, they work tirelessly to assist the committee members – certainly they did to assist me as the committee chair – and I know their work has been ongoing and this report comes out of their tireless work and their fantastic professionalism. I cannot extend my thanks to them enough.

I want to extend my compliments to the committee, and the ongoing committee since I left, on the work that has been done. Witness welfare is important. It is important that the agencies have taken these recommendations in a positive manner and tried to implement the outcomes of this report. This is a really good report, and I commend the report to the house.