In a move that will please long-suffering Australian taxpayers, the Labor Party have announced they will put the Government’s much vaunted multi-agency tax evasion investigation Operation Wickenby under the microscope if they win the election.

Labor’s Shadow Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen told Crikey, “It will be a priority to asses Operation Wickenby should we form a government.”

Bowen acknowledged the slow progress of Wickenby but was reluctant to put the boot in too early, “I am prepared to give it some more time before coming to a judgement. It is possible that the government has confidential information which is more encouraging than the public information”, he said.

I hope he is right because to date the Operation has only raised $67M (but have only collected $17.79M) while they have spent over three sevenths of its $305M funding. This means Wickenby is $70 million dollars in the red.

Bowen’s announcement comes after news on Friday that Australian taxpayer rights have been further eroded after the Government rushed through amendments to the Australian Crime Commission Act (ACC).

The amendments were developed in response to findings made by Justice Smith of the Victorian Supreme Court in ACC v Brereton [2007] VSC 297, which was handed down on 23 August 2007. Justice Smith held that for a summons to be valid, reasons for issuing the summons must have been issued prior to the time the summons was actually issued.

Michael Brereton is the high flying Melbourne solicitor who is a suspect in the Wickenby matter. A reasonable person would support Justice Smith’s decision but not Philip Ruddock or the zealots inside the ACC. They want to issue a summons, without detailing the reasons, for a suspect to appear before their highly secretive “examination“.

During the Parliamentary debate last Thursday Mr Ruddock revealed that before the Brereton decision, in over 90 per cent of the cases the reasons were recorded by examiners after the issuing of the notice or summons. Surely this is a concern to Australians, not to mention the Labor Party who allowed the Bill to proceed without amendment. And why would you want to give this mob more powers? Just look at breaking news today where a former ACC investigator “has been jailed for selling ecstasy and other illegal drugs.”

Paul Hogan and John Cornell also point the finger at the ACC for leaking details of their personal tax affairs to the media.

I think Labor’s Arch Bevis summed it up pretty well. “The Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2007 has been brought on in great haste. This is not the parliament at its best. This is not the government at its best.” Or indeed the Labor Party at its best!