Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) (Vic) 

Act: Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission Act 2011 (Vic).¹

Established: The Act was assented to on 29 November 2011. IBAC was formally established on 1 July 2012 and became fully operational in February 2013, replacing the former Office of Police Integrity.

Purpose: IBAC identifies, exposes and investigates serious corrupt conduct and police personnel misconduct connected with the Victorian public sector. Its jurisdiction covers public sector agencies and bodies, local councils, members of Parliament and their staff, the judiciary, and Victoria Police personnel (sworn and unsworn). It is an integrity body, not a general police force or prosecutor.

Powers conferred under the Act

The Act gives IBAC investigative powers not available to an ordinary agency, including compelling the production of documents and objects, entering and searching premises, seizing documents and objects, using surveillance devices, intercepting telecommunications, and holding private and public hearings at which a person can be required to give evidence. These are investigative and reporting powers, exercised subject to statutory safeguards and court oversight for the more intrusive ones -- not powers to determine guilt or impose punishment.

Is it a prosecuting authority?

No. Where an IBAC investigation discloses evidence that a criminal offence may have been committed, IBAC refers the matter to the Office of Public Prosecutions rather than prosecuting it itself. A student who describes IBAC as "prosecuting" a matter has made a specific, checkable error -- the same error to avoid for WA's CCC and NSW's ICAC. No specific leading case was confirmed in the sources cited here settling this point for IBAC specifically; the proposition is stated here on the basis of the Act's own text and IBAC's published description of its functions, not a court decision.

How it relates to the other Victorian bodies

IBAC's own conduct is overseen by Integrity Oversight Victoria -- the body created by a companion Act at the same time as IBAC specifically to oversee Victoria's integrity agencies, comparable in design to WA's Parliamentary Inspector of the CCC and NSW's Inspector of the LECC. IBAC does not do merits review (that is VCAT's role) and its jurisdiction is narrower than the Victorian Ombudsman's general maladministration jurisdiction: the Ombudsman Act 1973 (Vic) draws an explicit line between the two, with matters that appear to involve corrupt conduct going to IBAC rather than the Ombudsman in the first instance.

How this compares with WA's CCC and NSW's ICAC

Every mainland state built its own integrity commission, but not to the same design. WA's Corruption and Crime Commission covers corruption, crime and misconduct together in one body. NSW's Independent Commission Against Corruption targets "corrupt conduct" as narrowly defined and tested in Cunneen [2015] HCA 14. IBAC targets "serious corrupt conduct" and Victoria Police personnel misconduct specifically, within one Act. A student should not assume these three bodies' jurisdictional tests, thresholds or scope are interchangeable just because all three are commonly described as anti-corruption commissions.

Self-check

• Have I stated IBAC's function as investigation and referral, not prosecution?
• Have I distinguished IBAC's corrupt-conduct and police-misconduct jurisdiction from the Ombudsman's general maladministration jurisdiction?
• Have I avoided assuming IBAC's jurisdictional test is identical to WA's CCC or NSW's ICAC?