Can an Insider Fix Canberra’s Broken Watchdog?

Can political insiders truly cleanse the apparatus of state accountability? Canberra is offering a familiar recipe to fix a troubled bureaucracy: replacing one establishment figure with another. Following months of institutional paralysis and public embarrassment, the Commonwealth has tapped former Labor attorney general and senior judge Robert McClelland to lead the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

Alongside Christopher Savundra, currently an enforcement executive at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, McClelland will take the helm of the embattled watchdog on a five-year term starting next January. The appointments follow unanimous approval from a parliamentary joint committee after a selection process involving senior legal and regulatory officials. Attorney General Michelle Rowland framed the leadership overhaul as an essential reset for an agency meant to serve as the ultimate guardian of public integrity.

The reset was hardly optional. The commission’s inaugural chief, Paul Brereton, stepped down in May after his tenure descended into administrative chaos. Under Brereton, the agency suffered from secretive decision-making and high-profile missteps. Most damaging was its handling of referrals from the robodebt royal commission. After initially declining to investigate six officials, the agency faced over a thousand complaints, leading its inspector to find the decision was affected by apprehended bias because Brereton failed to step aside despite a declared conflict. Though no intentional wrongdoing was found, the damage to the body’s reputation was severe.

McClelland brings a hybrid pedigree to the role. Having served as the country’s top law officer under Kevin Rudd between 2007 and 2011, he transitioned from politics to the judiciary when the Coalition government appointed him to the federal bench in 2015. Since 2018, he has served as deputy chief justice of the Federal Circuit and Family Court.

Whether a former politician—regardless of his subsequent judicial tenure—can restore complete public faith in an anti-corruption commission remains an open structural debate. Oversight bodies require absolute detachment from the political class they are tasked with supervising. While lawmakers like independent MP Helen Haines have praised the appointment as a necessary chance to rebuild credibility, the real test will not be bipartisan goodwill in parliament, but how rigorously the commission investigates government overreach when political interests are on the line.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer thomas.nussbaumer@alpineweekly.com