Plan to strip police watchdog of judicially trained chief commissioner

In a report last December, the assistant inspector of the commission, Bruce McClintock, SC, said limiting the pool of candidates for the top job to current or former judges of a "superior court of record", including the Supreme Court and High Court, was "too narrow".

Mr McClintock pointed to present and former judges of the District Court as potentially suitable candidates, and said many of them would "to my knowledge ... have experience and abilities making them highly suitable for appointment as chief commissioner".

The government has since introduced a bill to extend the eligibility criteria to any lawyer with at least five years' standing. In a speech introducing the bill to Parliament, it said the proposal was "consistent with [Mr McClintock's] ... recommendation".

"This amendment will bring the eligibility criteria for chief commissioners of the LECC into line with the corresponding eligibility criteria for commissioners of the Independent Commission Against Corruption."

Opposition attorney-general Paul Lynch said the proposal overturned the recommendations of a previous expert report and went beyond the suggestions of Mr McClintock.

"The government is forced to lower the eligibility requirements of the LECC chief commissioner because they can't seem to find an eligible applicant willing to take the job," Mr Lynch said.

"The government really doesn’t care about oversight bodies. They don’t like them and don’t take them seriously – not finding willing applicants and then lowering eligibility criteria shows that.

"Their attitude is also pretty clearly seen in their failure to adequately fund agencies such as LECC and ICAC. There’s been plenty of evidence at parliamentary inquiries about these bodies not being able to do what they should because of inadequate funding."

But a spokesman for the NSW government defended the changes and said "five years’ experience as an Australian lawyer is the minimum qualification required to be eligible for appointment as a Justice of the High Court of Australia".

"The same criteria apply to commissioners of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, and the commissioner for integrity and the commissioner for oversight of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission," the spokesman said.

"As with the ICAC, only qualified candidates with substantial experience as a judge, judicial officer or senior member of the Bar, or with substantial experience in the conduct of commissions of inquiry, would be considered for appointment."