The Chief Commissioner of ICAC: John Hatzistergos AM

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Australian Law Student Podcast. I'm your host Oliver Hammond and in today's episode I had the pleasure of sitting down with the Chief Commissioner of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Honourable John Hazastragos. The Chief Commissioner has had one of the most varied and impactful careers in public law in NSW. He has served as a Commonwealth DPP lawyer, a barrister, deputy Mayor, Attorney General, a judge of the. District Court. And now leads the state's most important integrity body. We spoke about what drew him into public service, how his current role as Chief Commissioner compares with the many offices he's previously held. And he answers our rapid fire questions, providing helpful advice. Whether you're curious about careers beyond commercial law or interested in inner workings of one of Australia's most important anti corruption institutions, this is a conversation you don't want to miss. Are you a law student applying for clerkships this year? You're not alone. Get free access to Grad IQ's Law Clerkship Toolkit, containing detailed firm profiles, clerkship lists, and CV and cover letter templates. Want to go further? The Grad IQ Academy pairs you one-on-one with mentors who've got offers from Linklaters, Allen's, and Wyden case. You'll get tailored CV feedback, mock interviews, and advanced networking and commercial awareness prep. The best part? You only pay if you land an offer. Head to gradiq.com dot AU and apply now and make sure to tell them that you listen to the Australian Law Student. Thanks to Grad IQ for supporting the podcast. Chief Commissioner One of the most distinctive aspects of your career is the remarkable breadth of your experience. Having served as a judge, Attorney General, Deputy Mayor, a Commonwealth DPP lawyer, barrister and now Chief Commissioner of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. It's clear that private practice wasn't for you and ultimately you chose to focus your career on the public sector. What drew you to what you do to the public sector? And what about that path has captured your interests and sustained your commitment for all this time? Well, I did do a substantial amount of work in the private sector as well. I was a barrister for quite a number of years and I was also a solicitor in private practice before I went to the DPP. But it is true in the latter aspects of my career there's been a greater focus on public service. And I think the distinctive feature of public services is capacity to be able to affect a difference on a broad group of people, much more so than litigation that you might get it as a private practitioner. So that's the aspect of which I find particularly rewarding. Yeah, sure. And I suppose stepping through your your career, what was your time like as a, as a judge you decided to make that move, I understand earlier on in your career than than some of the the other changes. Well, I've been in politics of Parliament until 2011 when I resigned my seat and then I left to have a bit of a break, but also to take on some other roles. I was teaching at the University of Technology and Faculty of Law, and I also went on to consult for a short time in private practice and brush up on my skills before I returned to the bar exactly 1 year, I think, after I left. And then I left Parliament days and then I became a member of this training Crime Commission as it was then known, now the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission as an examiner. So I worked there for a little while whilst I was at the private bar and then I became a judge in 2014. But just prior to that, I'd been asked by the Premier of the day, Mike Baird, to undertake a review of the Bail Act, which I did, and I continued that on to some extent after I became a judge. To answer your question about what my time as a judge was like, it was one of my satisfying jobs I had. I enjoyed the collegiality of the court. The work was varied. It was hard work, but it was deeply rewarding in a professional sense. It gave me an opportunity to look at law in a different position from an advocate where you're trying to progress a case on behalf of a client or an individual, however an individual grievance or matter of that nature. So I found being a judge a situation where you sort of had to hop off the fence and and sorry, hop on the fence rather than hop off the fence is probably a better way of describing it and and look at things from a different lens. Yeah. Were there any cases during your time as a barrister or as a judge that were formative to your career, or ones that stand out? Look, very early on in my career I was very fortunate to have worked on some disputed election cases. The last Court of Disputed Returns case which was done in NSW, I appeared in along with some other members of the of the bar. That was particularly rewarding. It did result in a by election which resulted in a hung parliament, so I suppose some might view it as having contributed to instability in state administration. But be that as it may, I did a number of other cases in the Court of Disputed Returns, both at state level but also at a federal level in the High Court. They were informative and they were very interesting cases. I then branched in and did a lot of tort law later on in my career. I was doing a lot of dust diseases work in the in the tribunal, which was nearly established at that time. And then I eventually went into politics in 1999. Part of the time that I was at the bar, I was also a counsellor at Canterbury Council. So I had that exposure. And then after I went into politics, I was actually chair of the Commission of the committee, sorry, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, along with another range of other responsibilities. And four years after that I was appointed to the ministry and was in the ministry for eight years before I went on to do other things. And your decision to switch into politics, what was the reasoning behind that? What? What still led? You to Well, it was interesting. I as a very young person, I grew up in Redfern and my brother and I were close friends with a family in Redfern who's father to whom was the local mayor. And so we befriended them and we got to have discussions with them about different issues and I developed an interest in politics. I do recall that at a very young age, the Whitlam government was elected in 1972. They're not having been a Labour government at that point for 23 years. And the three years of that government was an interesting period and one that I looked at very carefully. It resulted in a lot of litigation, and I followed a lot of that litigation because I found that quite interesting and constitutionally quite fascinating. Cases like Kuwata and Pajoki Peterson, for example, which was the High Court decision which effectively said that the Commonwealth could not only enter into treaties but actually could enforce those treaties regardless of the fact that they might otherwise interfere with state rights, came out of that period of government. And so I developed a real interest arising from that period. There are other things that developed in that period. The Family Law Act was enacted, a range of other things. So I became quite interested in law and politics, but I was firmly of the view that I needed to do something other than politics as a prelude, although I did have an interest in one day perhaps participating. You there's the there's often a bit of distaste look upon career politicians. However, some say that there are there benefits. Did you say that, would you say? That I never wanted to be a career. Yeah, yeah. So would you say that your experience in law helped you in at your time as a politician? From my perspective it did, but some of my colleagues might have found me too puristic if I told them that there were things I shouldn't do or couldn't do, particularly during the time that I was attorney general. But I think there is a benefit of people who have had experience in the law at a practical level going into politics. I think NSW is fortunate. There's a number of very experienced lawyers who have gone on to serve in public positions, including the current leader of the opposition, attorney general, shadow attorney general, and there's a few people on the backbench as well. So I think that the contribution that they can make to public life benefits from the experience that they've had. Do you do? You find. That certain barristers are more political than others? I just wonder. Barristers are obviously great advocates in their own right usually, and so to make the change from being a barrister to becoming a politician seems like a very natural fit. I just wonder, is there perhaps a key trade of difference between key traits of difference between barristers that go on to be politicians and ones that don't? There's others who have studied that concept much, much more detail than I have. I don't know that I would stereotype anyone in that sort of straitjacket. I mean, people are people like that. They all differ. I think the one contribution that lawyers can make to a political career is an understanding of the importance of institutions and preserving those institutions and the integrity of those institutions. I think that's fundamental. I think the other aspect is understanding the rule of law. People who come from backgrounds that aren't the same as mine have different perspectives when they enter into public life, particularly people from business backgrounds or organizational party roles. But all of those can make a contribution provided that people listen to each other and able to learn from each other. And I I found the cabinet process on many occasions very interesting, listening to perspectives of people who had come from backgrounds other than mine, as I'm sure they would have benefited from hearing my perspective. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing with the your your answers to those questions. I'll go ahead in order to try to ask. Thank. You you're now Chief Commissioner of ICAC. How does this role differ from previous ones that you've had, and in what ways has it felt similar or drawn on similar skills from your previous ones? Well, the Commission is an organization. We're not. When you're a judge, for example, you're, you're basically hearing a case and the parties are presenting the evidence according to the rules and, and you have to determine the outcome of, of that particular piece of litigation. We're an investigative agency and on a relatively small proportion of our staff are lawyers. We have 12 in our legal team out of 164 employees. So the majority of our employees are not lawyers or at least not working as lawyers. A large portion of them are investigators. There's we have a big component of corruption prevention and education staff. We also have an assessments team. We have some very specialized skills amongst our investigators, including in areas such as digital forensics, forensic accounting and so on. So it's a highly specialized agency, much broader than just persons with legal backgrounds. And the work of the Chief Commissioner is different to a judge, I suppose, in the sense that judges are presented with evidence. We have to amass the evidence and like if it goes to a public inquiry, investigative findings relevant to the to the material we've uncovered and presented and subject of course to the submissions which are made by the relevant party. So it is different in that sense. There is some analogy, however, to some of the other work that I have done. I was for a period of time on the Australian Crime Commission, now the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and that was an investigative body, somewhat analogous to the ICIC, although different because here at the ICIC we're focused on the public sector and persons who interact with the public sector. Whereas the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has a very broad remit in terms of criminal investigation. Having said that, we do disseminate information such as the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission does to agencies and so it has that analogy as well. So there are, I suppose, contrasts and differences. I think the thing that appeals to me about this position is it combines my skills, my experience and my values into a job which I find very rewarding. Thank you. I'll now move on to some rapid fire questions that we ask all of our guests. I'll start off with the first one. What was your favorite subject in law school and and why? Look, I enjoyed administrative law in those days. We called it public law, yes. And I found it a a really interesting subject. It dealt with government, government decision making, and it's the closest subject that I found that provides an opportunity for law students to understand the different arms of government working together. I'm sure there's others as well, but it's the one that most appealed to me that is the the judiciary, the executives and the legislature. So. There's a a thing they are called an administrative lawyer. There's someone that specializes in that. I understand that this is a relatively newer phenomenon. Would you classify yourself as an administrative lawyer or or someone that? What do you think about that that? More generally, well, I've done some administrative law. I'd like to think I've done some other things as well. Look, one of the things that I've found this is just a personal approach to the study of law and something that I used to encourage my students to do is to think much more broadly than in silos. I think the silo thinking can be very restraining. And I, I do see a lot of lawyers who specialize in particular areas and I think there is benefit from having a, a broader outreach of the law. There are principles of law which cross fertilize and I've always tried to be as broad as possible. It's not possible in in every area. I don't profess to be an expert in family law, for example, or a specialist in that area by any means. But I I do think there are benefits in being a person who's able to draw upon principles in different areas of the law and particularly as an advocate, I found that quite useful. I think the other thing is that a lot of students these days I've found are really interested in the topic of human rights. I found administrative law a very strong human rights related subject. We don't. They never taught human rights as a subject at law school when I was there, but I think it's closely related in many ways. I used to tell my students that if you're really interested in human rights, rather than studying it as a as a subject of its own, you might find it more beneficial to understand principles of administrative law along with principles of practice and procedure, the rules of evidence, statutory interpretation. These are the sorts of things that can give you the capacity to be able to assert people's human rights in a in a really concrete way, rather than just learning about the concepts. I do recall another judge telling me that when cases were being presented, many of the practitioners knew the theory, knew the understanding of what human rights was like, but couldn't practically put the case in a way that would which would draw appeal and persuasion. And I think those fundamentals are very important, and I hope that our law skills continue to emphasize them moving forward. Thank you so much for that insight. What's 1 habit you believe has been pivotal to your success in the legal field? Oh, there's many habits that I had. I'm not sure they're all good ones. Hard work is obviously very important. Listening is a very good skill I think to have, particularly as a judge. You have to be prepared to listen. I think if I look back on the days where courts had a different approach to advocacy than they have today, I think when we're much more, much more. So do I find that judges these days are good listeners. And I think that's important. I think if you try and dominate the proceedings and get involved too much in the in the fray, so to speak, you'll lose objectivity. And these are two skills. I think at a personal level, I think it's very important for lawyers to have a life outside of the law. I think you have to have a balance in what you do, and you have to have an understanding of how the world operates. The good thing these days is a lot of degrees in law accompanied by degrees in other areas, so people do study other arts or economics or science or something else. I think that's important. Do you think that the shift towards an occupation which has more work life balance is a positive shift? I do think it's important. I think it's particularly important aspect which is allowed a broader group of people to be able to come to the law. I mean in my early days in practice, it was a very male dominated profession and certainly the judiciary was overwhelmingly dominated by males. That's a dramatic shift and being able to embrace technology, being able to provide assistance to people, to be able to maintain a life, a work life balance, I think is very important. Thank you. Can you name a book or a movie that's significant to you and one you'd recommend to students? Look, I'm a big reader of legal biographies and I've read a lot of them. Well, Denning's the final chapter, I think. Well, since I've read it is a great read. I really encourage people to to read it. I've read others. There's a book that's been done on Francis Forbes by the former president of the Court of Appeal, Keith Mason. Is is an excellent book to read. I I just read an enormous amount of legal biographies. I found them. I'm reading at the moment the biography of the former US Attorney General in the first Trump administration, and I'm finding that a really good rate. His name escapes me. It's funny that you mentioned that almost all of the, the, the judges and, and the really, really successful boys that we've spoken to almost always say that they read a lot of legal biographies. And I think that there might be a common denominator. Yeah, look, it's while again since I read it, but I did read a lot of the biographies of some of the early High Court judges. Yes, but so Samuel Griffiths, bearing in mind that all of the High Court when it was first established were all former politicians, yes yeah, he then went on to become judges and all of them were advocates. I found those really quite interesting and, and, and contrasting it to the way things would develop if similar scenarios occurred today. A lot of things are very different and we've moved on, but they're interesting. Yeah, and fascinating. Absolutely. I also I found the intersection with the the members of the military or ex members of the military. Then I think Chief Justice Latham was a an actor with someone in the army who came through. And I thought that was certainly interesting because it would be quite rare today, I imagine, for that sort of transition. So, yeah, again, I think there's a common denominator there amongst our legal biography. So thanks so much for that. I'll now move on to the last question. What's the greatest piece of advice you've ever received? Well, my late father always said to me something which I'm sure didn't come from him, must have come from someone else. But he did say to me that if you, if you pick a job which involves you doing something that you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And it's stuck with me all my life. And I think it's been an extraordinary ride for me. I've had such a very journey in the law. I never would have planned it this way, but Laurie is an occupation which leads you in many different directions. And I've just been very fortunate that I've had those opportunities and that I'm working now in the latter aspects of my career in an organization where I feel that a lot of those skills are being brought together in a hopefully positive way. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Chief Commissioner, for sharing your impressive journey with us. That's all the time we have. Thank you so much and I wish you best of luck for the rest. Of the year. You're welcome. Thank you. Are you a law student applying for clerkships this year? You're not alone. Get free access to Grad IQ's Law Clerkship Toolkit, containing detailed firm profiles, clerkship lists, and CV and cover letter templates. Want to go further? The Grad IQ Academy pairs you one-on-one with mentors who've got offers from Linklaters, Allen's and Wyden case. You'll get tailored CV feedback, mock interviews, and advanced networking and commercial awareness prep. The best part? You only pay if you land an offer. Head to gradiq.com dot AU and apply now and make sure to tell them that you listen to the Australian Law Student. Thanks to Grad IQ for supporting the podcast.