South Australia’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption will get a significant funding boost in this week’s State Budget to allow it to conduct “complex” cyber investigations.
The $10.3 million injection over four years will be used on advanced IT systems and is on top of the previous government commitment of $32 million over five years.
Premier and Treasurer Jay Weatherill said the funding included $3.7 million for implementation of the technology, and $6.6 million for system support, maintenance and “surveillance activities”.
As well as supporting ICAC investigations, the funds will also be used to give the Office for Public Integrity a “first-class complaints management system”.
The OPI is the shop front for complaints about public officials. ICAC Commissioner Bruce Lander will also oversee the OPI, which will decide whether complaints should be referred to other agencies or investigated by the ICAC.
Weatherill said the ICAC should have “the resources it needs to conduct its investigations in the most thorough way possible”.
“Establishing an ICAC was one of my first priorities when I became Premier and we will soon see the doors open on this important organisation,” he said.
Attorney-General John Rau said the funding would give ICAC the “best information technology resources available, which will be critical to its capacity to deliver for South Australians”.
“It will also allow the Office of Public Integrity – the front door for ICAC – to have the resources it needs to hit the ground running from day one,” Rau said.
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The level of resources to be provided to ICAC has been a contentious issue since the Labor Government started to shift its long-standing opposition to a local anti-corruption body in the last 18 months of Mike Rann’s Premiership.
When Weatherill became Premier in October 2011, one of his first announcements was the establishment of an ICAC with an independent commissioner and the more than doubling of the budget over five years.
At the time, then Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond questioned whether the resources would be sufficient to the task.
In February this year, the Government announced the appointment of Federal Court Judge Bruce Lander as the first commissioner.
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