Right now, section 19 of the act says:
Compliance with this Act is a condition of a person’s appointment or employment as a public office holder.
We know that right now, under the few sections, the 13 of 44 rules for which there can be penalties, there are breaches. In the last 12 months alone the commissioner has found 17 breaches. It appears there has not been any follow-up on these. We know, for example, that those 17 public office holders were not removed from appointment or employment as a result of the breach. As far as we can determine, there was very little attention paid in Parliament to those breaches and very little attention paid to them in the news media.
As a matter of the rule of law, there must be consequences attached to breaches. Our recommendation is that when a breach is found, in addition to the penalty, the government that employs or appoints the individual will have to respond to the breach, having taken into account the breach and taken into account section 19, which says that obeying the act is a condition of employment or appointment, by saying either “We're going to maintain the employment or appointment, and here is why”, or “We're not going to, and here is why”.
What is not acceptable, in our submission, is for breaches to be found—again, there's a small number of rules for which there can be penalties under the act as it now stands—and for nothing to happen as a result of them.
We make a recommendation that applies to the government, although in our brief we comment on the absence of scrutiny in Parliament and in the news media of these breaches. If this is a significant and serious act, then breaches are significant and serious and attention ought to be paid to them.