Office of the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner (NT) 

Act: Integrity and Ethics Commissioner Act 2025 (NT).¹

Established: The Bill passed the Legislative Assembly on 25 November 2025. Independent secondary reporting from the Office of the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner's own website states the Act's substantive provisions commenced 1 June 2026, replacing the former Inspector of the ICAC and folding four previously-separate offices into one.

Purpose: Until 1 June 2026, the Territory ran what New South Wales still runs today as separate bodies: an anti-corruption commission (ICAC), a general-maladministration Ombudsman, an Information Commissioner for freedom-of-information and privacy, and a Health and Community Services Complaints Commission. The 2025 Act does not abolish those four underlying Acts. Instead, under s 4, each is defined as an "Integrity Act" and each office-holder as an "Integrity Officer," and s 11 provides that whoever holds office as the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner (IEC) concurrently holds office as each of the four Integrity Officers, without a separate appointment for each role. Section 9 establishes the Office of the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner (the "IEC's Office") as an Agency.

Powers conferred under the Act

The IEC's powers are not newly invented by the 2025 Act — they are the sum of the powers each underlying Integrity Act already conferred on its own office-holder: ICAC's corruption-investigation powers under the ICAC Act 2017, the Ombudsman's maladministration-investigation powers under the Ombudsman Act 2009, the Information Commissioner's FOI/privacy oversight under the Information Act 2002, and the Health Complaints Commissioner's health-service complaint-handling powers under the Health and Community Services Complaints Act 1998. The IEC can investigate, make findings, and refer matters onward, but — as the ICAC function's own public description confirms — "cannot arrest someone, charge them with an offence, or direct someone to dismiss or take disciplinary action against a person."

Is it a prosecuting authority?

No, in any of its four combined roles. Where an investigation under any of the four Integrity Acts discloses a possible offence, the matter is referred to the appropriate law enforcement agency or prosecuting authority, not prosecuted by the IEC itself. No specific leading case was confirmed in the sources cited here. A 2021 Supreme Court challenge to an earlier ICAC finding involving a former Legislative Assembly Speaker was reported in the media, but a case citation could not be independently verified within the sources available in the sources cited here, so it is not cited here.

How this compares with other jurisdictions' integrity bodies

This is a genuine structural difference from every other jurisdiction in this overlay series, not just a different name for a familiar body. NSW splits integrity oversight across ICAC and the LECC; WA's CCC is a single anti-corruption and misconduct body separate from the WA Ombudsman. The NT, by contrast, now runs corruption investigation, general maladministration complaints, information/privacy oversight and health-service complaints through one independent office-holder performing four statutory roles at once. A student should not assume "the NT's ICAC" still means a body with jurisdiction limited to corrupt conduct the way NSW's ICAC does — since 1 June 2026, the same office also does the Ombudsman's and the Information and Health Complaints Commissioners' jobs.

Self-check

• Have I described the IEC as one person holding four statutory roles concurrently, not four separate bodies merged into a new one?
• Have I named all four underlying Integrity Acts and Integrity Officers the 2025 Act brings together?
• Have I stated plainly that none of the four combined roles include a power to prosecute?
• Have I avoided citing the Purick matter as a formal case citation, since its citation could not be independently verified?