Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries: Insights from Dr Scott Prasser
What are Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries?
There’s a lot of confusion, especially by the media, about these bodies.
- Why do they exist?
- Why do we have them?
- What is their public policy role?
- Do they have the potential to spur transformative change?
- And what should public servants and others in the wider public be aware about these bodies?
On the 11 May 2023, IPAA Queensland was delighted to host Dr Scott Prasser as he presented his wisdom and insights from a career of studying the past and present of Commissions, Inquiries and Reviews that have taken place in Australia.
This inaugural Mastercraft seminar saw Dr Prasser share insights on why they are established, how they function, and their role in supporting the improvement of public purpose work.
Hone your craft in public administration and develop your knowledge about these important public policy functions.
Below is a sample of the insights shared on the day. To watch the full event, check out the recording on IPAA Queensland YouTube channel.
What are Royal Commissions and Inquiries?
Here are some of the reasons why we should be aware of these bodies. They have a long history, and I’ll talk about that shortly, a very long history in Australia, a very long history prior to that. They’re continuing to be used. What is government up to? Why have they appointed an inquiry into this topic and not into another topic?
They come in all sorts of forms. The Royal Commission is like the Rolls Royce of inquiries, but there’s lots of other types of inquiries.
They are bespoke instruments. Each inquiry is designed. It is different.It is specially developed, manufactured, organised to meet a specific purpose. There’s not a one size fits all. They have different people chairing them, different people on them, different terms of reference, different powers, and so on.
Also, I put this in because as public servants, you are all rational decision-makers, and you work in a system full of rational decision-making. Royal commissions and public inquiries are the epitome because what do they do? They have usually fairly expert people on them. They call for submissions and collect evidence. They hold hearings and discussions. They analyze things. They often do research. Sometimes, it’s very extensive research. They produce a report.
This is the cornerstone of a rational decision-making process.
If you want to know what’s been happening in different levels of government, then go and look at… There’s an old saying, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” There’s always a book on every essay topic. There’s a Royal Commission report or an inquiry report about so many different things. People at the moment are banging on about housing costs. There was an inquiry in 1978 on housing costs. Very few people have bothered to go back. And if you go back and read it, it’s talking about the same sort of issues. Royal Commission reports and public inquiry reports include lots of data. If you read the Queensland floods inquiry, lots of data about floods and so on.
They do have impacts. Don’t fall for the old cliche, “Oh, they’re just a waste of time. They sit on desk.” Yes and no. They cost a lot of money, public money. The Royal Commission into Child Institutional Sexual Abuse cost $340 million. The Royal Commission into Banking we had cost $50 million. Even small inquiries. The Gonski inquiry on school funding, it wasn’t very expensive. It cost $5.5 million. They cost money so are we getting value for money?
And I say they’re the consumer item of modern government, and every government likes to appoint some sort of inquiry. That’s why I’m interested in inquiries. They’re really interesting. They tell us a lot about what government is doing and sometimes what it’s not doing.
What are these bodies?
There are two different distinct types.
Firstly, a public inquiry is a temporary body. It’s not a permanent part of the Public Service. It’s not a permanent advisory body like the Productivity Commission or the Grants Commission. It’s a temporary body. Usually, it’s appointed only by executive government. This is very important. It’s appointed by executive government for executive government. It’s not an inquiry that’s been appointed by the Productivity Commission, though they run inquiries. Its members are mostly drawn from outside of government. They might have been former members in some cases outside of government, but they’re no longer part of the government. They’re no longer public servants. A lot of ex-public servants get appointed to inquiries. They provide advice on policy issues on all sorts of issues.
Secondly, they can investigate all issues about corruption. They only can make recommendations. They don’t make decisions. They’re not courts of law.
So even Royal Commissions, inquiries into corruption into who’s got their hands on the till or whatever, they only make recommendations. And that’s a really important point. And as I said before, Royal Commissions are a type of inquiry, which I’ll talk about shortly, what makes them so distinct. Public inquiries, the type of public inquiries I’m talking about are not parliamentary committee inquiries.
All about Inquiries:
There are two main types of inquiries.
There are statutory inquiries. These are inquiries established under legislation. They have powers. The Royal Commissions Act in Canberra and the Commissions of Inquiry Act in Queensland, they bestow on these inquiries coercive powers of investigation. They can make you attend. They can make you answer the question even if it’s self-incriminating. They can put you in jail if you do not answer the questions. You can be up for perjury if you lie under oath. They are powerful. They can procure documents. They can procure files. They’re very powerful bodies where you would use to call these bodies star chambers back in Britain once upon a time. They are mainly used now to investigate allegations or major accidents or calamities, bushfires, bridge collapses and things, statutory inquiries.
The other type of inquiry is the non-statutory inquiry. Most public inquiries are non-statutory. They have no power to make you attend, to give evidence. They protect witnesses. If you say something which is defamatory, you can’t get sued. But in a non-statutory inquiry, there’s no protection of witnesses. They depend on the people attending or being involved on the prestige of the chair or the importance of the topic.
What about their impact?
The big question is do they have any impact?
There’s immense skepticism about Royal Commissions. They are appointed for an inquiry for digging in the truth, not for digging it out. Ross Gittins, the economist who writes in Sydney Morning Herald, “A wilful waste of public money and private time.” Used to delay decisions, all those things like that, “get politicians off the hook” sort of argument. All rigged. It’s all rigged, so on.
Beware of the other issue is that inquiries sometimes appear they’ve had no impact. But you need to think about the long-term impact of inquiries.
So now, are they a spur for policy change? One of the questions that people ask me. And my argument is they are. They’ve laid the foundation for modern Australia. Those Royal Commissions into social services, public administration, postal services, industry development, communication, laid the foundation. We had 54 Royal Commissions in the first 30 years of the Commonwealth. They’ve been a template for reforms at state and federal level, education, economy, taxation, public service, and so on. They’ve promoted new spending.
We need to spend more money on aged care. We need to spend more money on this area. We need to increase our allocation of priorities. They’ve had all those impacts. They’ve reviewed policies. They’ve exposed corruption.
Because of the existing institutions, the police were part of the problem. That’s why. You had to have an external body to investigate what these bodies couldn’t do. Or under court law, law courts could not resolve because of the laws of evidence and so on. You can allocate responsibility.
Who do inquiries report back to?
They don’t report back to Parliament. They report back to the government. The very government that appointed them goes back to, in most cases. And just remember about all inquiries, they’re temporary. Once they disband, that’s the end of it.
Chairs sometimes talk a bit more about things. Sometimes they don’t. They’re dropping their reports into a permanent ongoing process called the Public Sector, the public process. Will it get into that process, or will it get shuffled aside the process and so on? The people who sponsor those inquiries needs a minister to sponsor inquiry, move on and out or up.
Why should public servants and the public care about public inquiries? And do we still need them?
Government needs to be aware of them or should be concerned about them because it can expose their flaws, going to expose what they don’t do well. And they can bring down governments. The Fitzgerald Inquiry brought down the Coalition or the Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In Western Australia, brought down governments in Western Australia. Victoria, they brought down government governments in Victoria. New South Wales, there’s been so many inquiries and corruption.
It can expose those flaws, so the government need to take them seriously. The Beattie government really monitored the Commission of inquiry into hospitals carefully and was responding all the time in every little nuance of that.
Recommendations are hard to resist. Once the recommendations are out there, it’s hard to say, “We’re not going to do them.” So they’re a bit like a gun at their head to some extent. And overall, a lot of inquiries have led to better public interest outcomes.
To public servants. Well, it could expose some minor thing you did wrongly where you’re following the rules. You are going to have to be a witness before them. And it’s not fun, let me tell you. It can affect your career. Some public servants have lost their jobs because of what’s happened at Royal Commission inquiries. However, inquiry reports can often be guidelines for future action. You’ve got that inquiry report. It can help you implement a new program because you’ve got the evidence of the inquiry to back you up. To the public and citizens, it can address grievances.
Some conclusions…
Firstly, public inquiries are different from the permanent public service for all those reasons. Different personnel, different powers, different timeframes, sometimes support from the minister which often can fall away. But they’re distinct. They’re distinct bodies.
They keep being appointed means there’s real demand for them, the demand that there’s something that existing institutions don’t provide. They’re so prevalent in Australia, they’ve become a durable part of our system.
You won’t find it in a lot of textbooks, a section on public inquiries, but they, I think they should be because there’s so many of them being appointed. They’ve got unique features, haven’t they? They’re public. They’re open. Their reports are released. It’s not a manipulated process. They’ve got flaws and these limits, but they have been pretty worthwhile.
Do we still need them? We do.
We need them for their independence. We’ve got this magic these days, what I call the cult, the cult of the inquiry.
If you appoint an inquiry, that will fix everything. It can’t fix everything because the inquiry can only go so far. It still bounces back to that thing that you are dealing with. All the time, it is politics, and that’s what you’re dealing with. And it’s that process and that activity which inquiries, we can’t have government just by inquiry. We can’t just do whatever inquiry says for those reasons I’ve pointed out.
In the end, it comes back to the political arena. And governments have got to make decisions and they’ve got to make decisions based on the public interest and their interpretation of the public interest.
I think inquiries have done a great service to Australia. Some have not been so good, some are valuable, some are not so valuable. And I think that we’re going to keep seeing more inquiries being used.
We thank Dr Scott Prasser for his support for IPAA Queensland
ABOUT DR SCOTT PRASSER
IPAA Queensland was delighted to present our expert speaker, Dr Scott Prasser. Dr Prasser is a public policy consultant and commentator. He is the editor of the recently released book New Directions in Royal Commissions and Public Inquiries: Do we need them? and provides regular analysis is print, radio and television media. He has held senior policy and advisory roles in state and commonwealth public services, and served as ministerial advisor to three federal Cabinet Ministers. He holds undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from the University of Queensland and Griffith University. Dr Prasser is also a IPAA Queensland Councillor.