Integrity and Ethics Oversight Inspector (NT)
A short factsheet on the NT's Integrity and Ethics Oversight Inspector, the officer who from 1 June 2026 oversees both the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner's Office and, unusually, the Auditor-General's Office.
Learning outcomes
- State the Inspector's establishing Act and its dual oversight role: the Commissioner/IEC's Office, and separately the Auditor-General's Office.
- Identify the Inspector's core powers -- evaluation, complaint-handling, and compelling attendance for questioning -- and that these are oversight powers, not prosecuting powers.
- Compare the Inspector's dual remit with WA's and NSW's narrower, single-body oversight inspectors.
Act: Integrity and Ethics Commissioner Act 2025 (NT).1
Established: Bill passed the Legislative Assembly 25 November 2025; the role is independently reported to have commenced 1 June 2026, replacing the former Inspector of the ICAC. The officeholder appointed to the predecessor role continued into the new one.
Purpose: The Inspector provides independent oversight of the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner — the single office now performing what were previously the separate roles of ICAC, the Ombudsman, the Information Commissioner and the Health Complaints Commissioner — and, distinctively, also oversees the Auditor-General's Office.
Powers conferred under the Act
Section 24 sets out two separate functions: in relation to the Commissioner and the IEC's Office (s 24(1)(a)), the Inspector evaluates the Commissioner's performance in each of the four Integrity Officer roles, evaluates IEC personnel conduct, receives and deals with complaints, and resolves conflicts of interest that arise from one person concurrently holding four integrity roles at once (s 40 of the Act deals with this specifically). In relation to the Auditor-General's Office (s 24(1)(b)), the Inspector separately evaluates the Auditor-General's performance and handles complaints about that office. Section 25 gives the Inspector all powers necessary or convenient for these functions, including — per later provisions in the Act — the power to require a person to attend for questioning. Section 26 makes the Inspector independent of direction from any person in exercising these powers.
Is it a prosecuting authority?
No. The Inspector's role is evaluative and complaint-handling oversight of two other integrity institutions, not prosecution of offences. No specific leading case is cited here — the role and its predecessor are both too recent for settled case law to have developed.
How this compares with other jurisdictions' oversight inspectors
Every jurisdiction in this overlay series that has an anti-corruption body also has a distinct officer overseeing it — WA's Parliamentary Inspector of the CCC and NSW's Inspector of the LECC are the direct counterparts. What is distinctive about the NT's Inspector is the scope: it oversees not one body but two entirely separate institutions — the Commissioner's four-role integrity office, and separately the Auditor-General's Office, which has nothing to do with corruption investigation at all. A student should not assume "the NT's version of the Parliamentary Inspector" only concerns integrity and corruption oversight; it also functions as the Auditor-General's own overseer.
Self-check
- Have I named the Inspector's two separate oversight functions -- the Commissioner/IEC's Office, and the Auditor-General's Office -- rather than assuming a single narrower remit?
- Have I stated that the Inspector's role is evaluative and complaint-handling, not prosecutorial?
- Have I avoided assuming the NT's oversight-inspector model is scoped the same way as WA's or NSW's?