WA corruption watchdog wants more power. When is it too much?

Western Australia's Corruption and Crime Commission is heading into its first major overhaul in more than two decades, and its boss wants more of everything: more money, more investigators, more proactive hunting, and, most significantly, a new legal power to pursue private contractors who do work for government. On the surface, that sounds like an unambiguous good. The harder question is whether a watchdog given enough reach and resources eventually becomes the thing it was built to stop.

The jurisdictional gap is real, and the examples Corboy cites are not hypothetical

CCC commissioner Michael Corboy is not being unreasonable. The gap he is describing is real and consequential. As things stand, the CCC can only investigate public servants, which means a private contractor embedded in a government agency, handling government data, exercising government authority, can only be examined by that agency itself. Corboy pointed to the national scandal involving consulting firms misusing Commonwealth data, and to organised crime allegations surrounding NDIS service providers, as exactly the kind of cases his commission could not touch at the state level. He also flagged that the infiltration of government construction projects by the CFMEU on the east coast, which has reportedly cost Victorian taxpayers around $15 billion, would fall outside his remit if something similar emerged in WA.

The fragmented subcontracting arrangements common in large infrastructure projects make this gap worse, not better. Corboy put it plainly: the more fragmented the contractual structure, the more potential there is for misconduct. When you have a head contractor, several tiers of subcontractors, and private workers sitting inside government departments for years at a stretch, accountability diffuses quickly. Closing the jurisdictional gap over private contractors is a defensible response to a genuine structural problem.

Expanded jurisdiction over contractors is not a narrow power — it covers a large portion of the WA economy

But here is where the analysis has to stay honest about what expanded power actually means in practice.

A corruption watchdog that can investigate anyone who touches a government contract is, by definition, a corruption watchdog with significant discretionary power over a large portion of the economy. Government contractors are not a narrow category. In a state like WA, where the public sector is a dominant purchaser across construction, health, IT, social services, and resources, the number of private entities that could fall within an expanded CCC jurisdiction is enormous. The power to investigate is not neutral. Being investigated by a body with the CCC's compulsory examination powers is not a minor inconvenience. It carries reputational, legal, and financial consequences regardless of outcome.

History is not short of examples where oversight bodies built to check corruption became vectors for it themselves.

History is not short of examples where oversight bodies built to check corruption became vectors for it themselves. The power to compel testimony, obtain documents, and conduct covert surveillance can be exercised well or exercised badly, and the difference is usually a function of culture, accountability, and the quality of the institution's own constraints, not its formal mandate. The CFMEU investigation Corboy cited is instructive in a different way than he intended: the most serious long-running corruption on major projects was not exposed by a single watchdog finding a smoking gun, but through sustained investigative journalism, royal commissions, and eventually political will. No single institution was sufficient.

The CCC cannot currently measure whether WA corruption is rising or falling — that matters for the expansion argument

Corboy himself acknowledged that the CCC lacks the resources to even measure whether corruption in the WA public sector is increasing or decreasing over time. That is a striking admission. An agency that cannot assess the trajectory of the problem it exists to solve is not well positioned to argue for a dramatic expansion of jurisdiction. More resources might be entirely justified. But the sequencing matters: demonstrating effectiveness within the current mandate is a stronger foundation for expansion than asserting potential.

The government's response, that major projects have "robust procurement, contracting, audit and compliance frameworks," is not quite the reassurance it is intended to be. Robust frameworks that no independent body can interrogate are not obviously more trustworthy than no frameworks at all. The Public Sector Commission's answer, that managers monitor contracted workers through "contract management," describes a self-policing arrangement of exactly the kind that corruption tends to exploit.

The right design is scoped jurisdiction with stronger accountability on the watchdog itself

The right design here is probably not the CCC's full wish list, nor the status quo. It is an expanded jurisdiction over private contractors scoped clearly to genuine public functions, with a corresponding strengthening of the CCC's own accountability mechanisms, transparent reporting obligations, and a resourcing model tied to demonstrable outputs rather than open-ended aspiration. The watchdog needs teeth. It also needs a leash.

The parliamentary committee reviewing the CCC's mandate has the harder job in all this: not deciding whether corruption in government contracting matters, because it plainly does, but designing the institution capable of addressing it without becoming an unaccountable power centre of its own. That is a calibration problem, not a values one, and getting it wrong in either direction has real costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What can the WA Corruption and Crime Commission actually investigate right now?
The CCC currently has jurisdiction only over public servants — government employees. A private contractor working inside a government agency, handling public data or delivering public services, can only be investigated by the agency itself, not by the CCC.

Why does the CCC want power over private contractors?
Commissioner Michael Corboy argues that fragmented subcontracting on large government projects creates accountability gaps that corruption exploits. Consulting firm scandals, NDIS fraud allegations, and CFMEU infiltration of construction projects are all cases the CCC cannot currently touch at the state level.

What is the risk of giving a corruption watchdog too much power?
Oversight bodies with compulsory examination powers — the ability to compel testimony, obtain documents, and conduct covert surveillance — can cause serious reputational, legal, and financial harm through investigation alone, regardless of outcome. Institutions built to check corruption have historically become vectors for it when their own accountability mechanisms are weak.

Does the WA government think there is already enough oversight of contractors?
The WA government says major projects have robust procurement, audit, and compliance frameworks, and the Public Sector Commission says managers monitor contracted workers through contract management. Critics of that position note that frameworks which no independent body can interrogate are self-policing arrangements — exactly the conditions corruption tends to exploit.

What should an expanded CCC look like if it gets new powers?
The strongest design would scope jurisdiction clearly to genuine public functions rather than any contact with a government contract, strengthen the CCC's own accountability mechanisms, and tie its resourcing to demonstrable outputs. Expanding jurisdiction without those guardrails risks creating an unaccountable power centre rather than a more effective watchdog.