ICAC appointment 'farcical', Xenophon says
The appointment of a senior police officer as chief investigator to South Australia’s new Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has been described by Sentaor Nick Xenophon as farcical.
Major Crime boss Grant Moyle has helped solve some of the state’s most disturbing cases, and will soon be on secondment to the new ICAC for three years.
He will answer only to commissioner Bruce Lander – much of it in secret.
It is possible he will be confronted with investigating alleged police corruption.
“We’re likely to get a number of allegations of corruption, I suppose, in that time,” Det Supt Moyle said.
Others say it is a certainty.
“There’s no doubt that police conduct will come to the attention of ICAC at some stage,” Greens MP Mark Parnell said.
Mr Moyle said he will stand aside from those issues, which will be handballed to a more junior officer.
But Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said an interstate or overseas recruit would have been a better choice.
“The fact he is on secondment from the police force means that he’ll go back into the police force, I think, makes the whole process farcical,” Mr Xenophon said.
Strangely, ICAC is now off the agenda of the major political parties. Both declined to make any comment about a potential conflict of interest.
