WA: ACC may get more powers in wake of new corruption claims

AAP General News (Australia)
08-09-2000
WA: ACC may get more powers in wake of new corruption claims

PERTH, Aug 9 AAP - Western Australia's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) may get greater
powers in the wake of fresh police corruption allegations.

In a report to be tabled in parliament tomorrow, the parliamentary committee which
oversees the public sector watchdog has recommended the body be given the power to compel
witnesses under investigation to answer questions.

Currently, the ACC receives allegations of corrupt or criminal conduct and determines
how those claims will be investigated.

But it can force witnesses to answer questions only if it has appointed a special investigator.

Liberal MP Derrick Tomlinson, chair of the ACC parliamentary committee, said the committee's
report to be tabled tomorrow recommended extending the ACC's powers.

And Mr Tomlinson said he believed a royal commission into corruption in the WA police
service was inevitable.

New claims of police corruption, presented in the ABC's Four Corners program on Monday,
prompted renewed calls for a royal commission, calls WA Premier Richard Court has opposed.

The state opposition has pushed for such an inquiry even before comments by ACC chair
Terry O'Connor earlier this year that corruption existed among some detectives.

"We've now reached the stage where those police officers who are under scrutiny are
fingering one another," Mr Tomlinson told ABC radio.

"The history of these sorts of exercises is that, when rats turn on one another, one
of them squeals.

"When one of them squeals, the squeal will reverberate through a royal commission.

"There is the air of inevitability about it."

But he said now was not the appropriate time to call such an inquiry.

"At this stage all that we have is police officers under scrutiny starting to turn
on one another.

"They still have not squealed and when they do squeal that will be the time for a royal
commission."

Mr Tomlinson said the new report focused only on the issue of greater powers for the
ACC, and in the future the committee would look at a more general report on ACC operations.

Mr Court said the ACC was a well resourced and powerful body but if the parliamentary
committee made a reasonable recommendation for further powers the government would consider
this favourably.

The premier said he did not believe a royal commission was inevitable.

AAP sd/maur/bwl

KEYWORD: POLICE (CARRIED EARLIER)

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