(Image: AAP/Private Media)
(Image: AAP/Private Media)

Michael Yabsley is a former NSW minister, former federal treasurer of the Liberal Party, and author of Dark Money: A plan to reform political fundraising and election funding in Australia.

Barely a week passes in Australia without hearing an apology from someone in public life. For many who end up saying “I apologise for the mistake I made”, it might sound noble and contrite. But often this apology masks deliberate, carefully planned wrongdoings.

The politician who overclaimed travel expenses, the bishop who turned a blind eye to the paedophile priest, the sport star abusing women, the governor-general who appeared in an advertisement, the newspaper that hacks a teenager’s mobile phone. These are not “mistakes”, a word that suggests the offence was unintended and inadvertent.

The word does not apply to, say, John Barilaro, or for that matter Lisa Wilkinson either — the latter in relation to her explosive two-and-a-half-minute speech at the Logies, the former about the folly of his New York job, which he yesterday abandoned in the face of intense public and political pressure.

These mistakes were premeditated.

As major as the consequences may be for Barilaro and Wilkinson personally and professionally, the bigger and more important consequences relate to a federal integrity commission and its effectiveness.

Such a body would have no jurisdiction over either matter. But what constitutes a mistake rather than wrongdoing, and the problem of people in high places exercising disproportionate and inappropriate influence, is central to its effective functioning.

As a community we need to think this through in anticipation of a federal integrity commission: not all corrupt behaviour is criminal. Arguably, most corruption is not criminal.

Distinguishing, in the context of corrupt behaviour, between a “mistake” and a “wrongdoing” isn’t merely a semantic debate. Mistakes — making the wrong decision, issuing the wrong information, providing a poor service — are an unfortunately inevitable part of public administration.

But they’re different to intentional wrongdoing of the kind a federal integrity commission must address. How it does so will be one of many vexed questions exercising the wise heads in the obscure but important world of those who translate the relatively everyday language of political policy into legislation.

But what’s the link between Barilaro and Wilkinson and integrity? Both have inflicted reputational damage on the pillars of public life, and both represent the abuse of power by entitled and selfish people. It may or may not be criminal behaviour, but that doesn’t make it an acceptable use of power.

Sooner rather than later a federal integrity commission with teeth will take its place in Australia’s anti-corruption landscape. For a federal integrity commission to do its job we need to be prepared for a process that recognises that most corruption is not criminal.

The Centre for Public Integrity, chaired by former Court of Appeal judge Anthony Whealy QC and with board members including Geoffrey Watson SC, recently opined: “if someone adversely affects the exercise of public administration directly or indirectly, this is corrupt conduct”.

Black letter — or “hard” corruption — is relatively rare in Australia. But we must do better — much better — in addressing the kind of corruption Whealy describes, that of people abusing their power. That will mean broadening the scope of corruption to cover abuse of power — including self-entitled media stars blowing up a criminal trial and retiring politicians setting themselves up in cushy jobs.

Doing much better will also mean dealing with dark money and soft corruption in public life. As I have written before, big money in politics and the soft corruption it spawns remains the weakest link in the integrity of our democratic system. Big money is a dark secret among established political players, mainly because the major parties have not worked out how to get by without the big money that has greased the wheels of Australian politics since Federation.

It may not necessarily be criminal, but it’s corruption.

True enough, Barra and Lisa, “nobody died” from your actions. But you have caused, in very different settings, harm to the integrity of public life and the institutions that are central to it. Let’s see what a federal integrity commission does to take Australia another step closer to being what we should be rather than what we are.