Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to relate the story of a Bradfield constituent which I believe highlights the danger that anticorruption bodies can present in tainting the reputations and damaging the lives of innocent people. Of course the coalition fully supports a Commonwealth anticorruption commission, but it is important that there are appropriate procedural safeguards so that people do not become collateral damage.

My constituent Nick Di Girolamo was a successful lawyer and businessmen and a respected leader in the Italian-Australian community. His world was turned upside down when he was accused by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in New South Wales of fraud in 2014. ICAC subjected Mr Di Girolamo to public slurs and humiliations in full view of a voracious media. A particularly damaging allegation was that, as CEO of Australian Water Holdings, Mr Di Girolamo had acted fraudulently by seeking reimbursement from Sydney Water for $76,000 of Liberal Party donations. Mr Di Girolamo's act of sending a gift of wine to the then New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell attracted great focus from ICAC and intense media interest.

In 2017 ICAC ultimately cleared Mr Di Girolamo of allegations it made of him. But this was several years after the accusations were made, in the full glare of publicity. Over those several years Mr Di Girolamo faced repeated cross-examinations, negative media coverage and great family stress. He even received death threats. Once he was hauled before ICAC, Counsel Assisting, Geoffrey Watson, fed the hysteria by labelling Mr Di Girolamo a 'shyster'. This was deeply regrettable and inappropriate conduct by Mr Watson, but of course he has never provided an apology. In Mr Di Girolamo's words:

When counsel assisting opened I was belittled and I was humiliated by the severity of the allegations.

And:

They cut me to the core. It was truly harrowing as I knew the allegations were wrong. It's an environment where you're not innocent until proven guilty. If you're there, the reporting is such that you're already guilty.

For Mr Di Girolamo, the result of being called before ICAC was to be shunned by colleagues, friends and business associates. His income collapsed.

Since having the unfair allegations against him dropped by ICAC, Mr Di Girolamo has sought to get his life back on track and now runs his own legal practice. But being cleared of wrongdoing by ICAC does not erase one's association with it. Google search results and online news articles don't disappear. Mr Di Girolamo has sought to present his cautionary tale to the parliament through a submission to the committee inquiring into the national anticorruption commission legislation. Troublingly, the committee has declined to publish his submission, which leads me to wonder how many other submissions highlighting some of the negative consequences of current design features of state anticorruption commissions have similarly been suppressed by the committee, with the Labor majority presumably following direction from the Attorney-General.

Mr Di Girolamo has authorised me to refer to his submission and to quote from it. In his submission he makes it clear that he supports the establishment of a Commonwealth anticorruption commission but that it is very important that the rules under which it operates are carefully designed. Both the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General have recently stated that the national anticorruption commission has been modelled on the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption. Mr Di Girolamo—rightly, in my view—raises his personal experiences, highlighting matters that properly need to be balanced up in considering the rules under which the national anticorruption commission will operate. In his submission he argues that changes should be made to the government's NACC legislation, such as creating the ability for commissioners to declare the innocence of people of interest at any time during proceedings. This is worth considering.

Let me relay one of the most painful experiences Mr Di Girolamo and his family were forced to endure. He says:

As I walked into the inquiry on the first day, someone yelled out, 'Suicide is an option, Nick.'

Mr Di Girolamo goes on to say in this submission—the one that the committee has not seen fit to publish—that:

There's something about the way the commission has operated that's conducive to people behaving so abhorrently.

I urge the government to heed the experiences of Mr Di Girolamo and other witnesses who have been called before state anticorruption commissions around the country. Sadly, there are too many instances of reputations and livelihoods destroyed, often leading to significant mental trauma and in some cases to suicide. I call on the Joint Select Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation to examine Mr Di Girolamo's experiences in making its recommendations on amendments to the bill.

The presumption of innocence has been part of the golden thread of justice in Commonwealth countries for many centuries for very good reason. It is supported by the rules of evidence and many other procedural safeguards. We may well reflect that reputation, which Shakespeare called the immortal part of oneself, is not easily restored once lost, particularly when unjustly lost. These important principles of justice should not be lightly sacrificed. I urge the government and my fellow parliamentarians to consider these matters very carefully.