Congratulations to the Board, staff and supporters of TI Australia (TIA) which celebrated TIA’s 30th anniversary in Melbourne in late August. I joined in the celebration dinner and the Australian Anti-Corruption Summit on the following day.
TI Australia’s Achievements and Impact
At the celebration dinner AJ Brown took us through the history of TI Australia, and presented awards to people who had provided outstanding service including to Greg Thompson, a TI Australia Non-Executive Director for TI Australia for over 25 years.
Transparency International (TI) as a global movement was born out of the growing realisation in the 1980s-90s that corruption was directly undermining efforts to fight poverty in the world’s poorest countries, and that this was exacerbated by corruption in government. The movement was established in Berlin, by Peter Eigen and others. New Zealander Jeremy Pope was its first CEO.
Transparency International Australia was launched in March 1995 (TINZ in 1999).
It was in Australia that Jeremy Pope developed the concept of a ‘National Integrity System Assessment’ (NISA), leaning into the work of Professor Janet Ransley and Professor Charles Sampford both at Griffith University. Jeremy worked with Sampford to develop a full NISA.
National Integrity System Assessments have been used across the TI movement to assess the laws, ethical standards, economic incentives and institutions that raise standards of behaviour and combat corruption.
In 2005 AJ Brown was the lead author of TI Australia’s first NISA report. AJ also peer reviewed Transparency International’s New Zealand’s two NISAs in both 2003 and 2013.
AJ is now Chair of TI Australia (TIA), and has had leadership roles on the TI global Board. Both New Zealand and Australia have had significant impacts on the global movement and close connections.
TIA now has multiple projects, including the global mining integrity programme that it runs on behalf of the movement. TIA has developed the Infrastructure Corruption Risk Assessment Tool (ICRAT). It also collaborates with chapters across Asia Pacific to strengthen their research and advocacy capabilities.
Australian Anti-Corruption Summit
The Australian Anti-Corruption Summit on 21 August was keynoted by Dr Ketakandriana Rafitoson, Global Vice-Chair of Transparency International and Executive Director of Publish What You Pay.
The summit included presentations from former State Premiers, Anti-Corruption Commissioners, Members of Parliament, members of academic and global institutions, federal regulatory authorities, investigative journalists, academics and civil society leaders. It was a full agenda with lots of challenges and interest.
Huge congratulations to Transparency International Australia, with its great governance team led by AJ Brown and its management team led by Clancy Moore, and its many supporters, private and corporate.
