Corruption and Integrity Update April 2025

In this edition of the Queensland Corruption and Integrity Update we consider various updates related to the Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) and its governing legislation, as well as updates from the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).

Crime and Corruption Commission updates

CCC’s Quarterly Report Number 9  

On 7 April 2025, the CCC released its nineth quarterly report on the Implementation and delivery of COI recommendations. The CCC continues to make progress in implementing the COI recommendations, with the following updates since the last report:

• Recommendations 1-5: All recommendations relating to the CCC’s use of seconded police officers have been completed. This includes the approval and implementation of the CCC’s model on the use of seconded police officers in the Corruption Division, which predominately utilises civilian investigators, however, allows 30-40% of investigators to be seconded police officers;
• Recommendations 7-10: While some of recommendations relating to the increased civilianisation of the CCC’s Corruption Division are still in progress, the QPS and CCC endorsed a new Memorandum of Understanding and Secondment Policy. This recognised the need to increase the CCC’s civilian investigator capacity, while acknowledging the benefits of the retaining some seconded police officers; and
• Recommendations 11-14: The CCC has implemented all recommendations in relation to training and onboarding of staff.

CCC calls for public sector to participate in integrity survey

In late March, the CCC launched the Corruption Perception Survey 2025 (Survey) concerning corruption and integrity in Queensland. The Survey requests employees of public service departments, hospital and health services, and local governments give their views on corruptions risks, attitudes towards reporting corruption, and integrity. The Survey is voluntary and anonymous.

The CCC has written to various stakeholders (e.g. the Commissioner of Police) seeking their support in distributing the Survey.

The CCC will publish the key findings from the Survey in mid-2025.

Proposed legislative amendments relevant to the operation of the CCC

Crime and Corruption (Restoring Reporting Powers) Amendment Bill 2025

On 11 April 2025, the CCC released Report No. 7 on the Crime and Corruption (Restoring Reporting Powers) Amendment Bill 2025. The Gadens Corruption and Integrity March 2025 Update has previously covered the introduction of the Bill and the proposed reforms to restore the power to publicly report on corruption investigations to the CCC.

Following an examination of the Bill and a series of hearings, Queensland Parliament’s Justice, Integrity and Community Safety Committee recommended that the Bill be passed, unchanged

Office of the Information Commissioner Queensland

Information Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2023 (IPOLA Act) implementation

In a recent media release, the OIC outlined new resource – the “Prepare for IPOLA workbook” (Workbook) which is designed for public sector agencies to document activities, responsibilities and status of work ahead of the IPOLA Act reforms.

The IPOLA Act amends the Information Privacy Act 2009 (IP Act), Right to Information Act 2009 (RTI Act) and related provisions in other legislation to:

• enhance the protection of personal information and ensure appropriate responses and remedies for data breaches and the misuse or mismanagement of personal information by agencies;
• clarify and improve the operation of information privacy and right to information frameworks;
• support the operation of the administrative scheme for the proactive release of Cabinet documents; and
• transfer the reporting responsibilities on the functions of the Acts to the Office of the Information Commissioner.

The Workbook was developed in response to stakeholder feedback and is structured by topic to cover the main areas of reform:

• Information Privacy and the Queensland Privacy Principles
• Mandatory Notification of Data Breach (MNBD) scheme
• Right to Information

The IPOLA Act reforms are anticipated to commence from 1 July 2025, except for the MNDB scheme in local government, which will follow in 2026.

Information Commissioners and Ombudsmen call on public sector leaders to be stewards of government information

In a recent media release, Information Commissioners and Ombudsmen from around Australia met on 2 April 2025 to discuss the importance of good record keeping and information governance to the public’s legal right to access government-held information.

The key takeaways from this were to implore public sector leaders to demonstrate stewardship by:

• establishing and maintaining stringent information governance and integrity standards to maximise the benefits of data sharing and open data initiatives;
• acknowledging the potential of new and emerging technologies to enhance public sector productivity and improve service delivery, while also committing to ‘transparency by design’ to ensure that information and data created are properly preserved and accessible; and
• recognising the growing demand from the community for government-held information, particularly personal information, and the need to prioritise resources and technological solutions to meet this demand.

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Authored by: 
Daniel Maroske, Partner
Anna Fanelli, Senior Associate
Caitlin Holmes, Lawyer
Jacinta Beecher, Lawyer
Jonathan Kumar, Paralegal