By James Stevens, Director and Solicitor, Go To Court Lawyers. Last reviewed 15 April 2026.
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The Northern Territory government has passed legislation establishing an Integrity and Ethics Commissioner (IEC). The Integrity and Ethics Commissioner will take over responsibility for all integrity matters in the Territory, while previously these were handled by four separate integrity bodies. This page outlines how the Integrity and Ethics Commissioner will operate, and what has changed.
Legislation
The Integrity and Ethics Commissioner Bill 2025 was passed by the NT parliament on Tuesday 25th of November 2025.
What has changed?
Before the passage of the legislation, the Northern Territory had four separate integrity bodies.
Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC)
The ICAC has been responsible for responding to complaints about corruption in the NT government.
Information Commissioner
The information Commissioner has been responsible for responding to complaints about breaches of privacy and for processing freedom of information requests.
NT Ombudsman
The Ombudsman has been responsible for responding to complaints about government agencies and facilities - such as complaints about mistreatment in prison.
Health Complaints Commissioner
The Health Complaints Commissioner has been responsible for responding to complaints about health, disability and community services.
Under the new system, the IEC will deal with complaints formerly made to all of these bodies, effectively becoming a sort of ‘super-commission.’ However, exactly how each of the areas of responsibility will be managed by the new commissioner is not yet clear.
The new system
Under the new system, an assistant Integrity and Ethics Commissioner and an Integrity and Ethics Inspector will also be appointed. The Integrity and Ethics Inspector will be responsible for evaluating the performance of the IEC and the auditor general. The duties of the assistant Integrity and Ethics Commissioner have not yet been announced publicly.
The government has said that the new system is being introduced in response to the findings of the 2025 Integrity Review.
2025 Integrity Review
The 2025 Integrity Review was conducted by ICAC Inspector Bruce McClintock SC and Acting Supreme Court Judge Graham Hiley KC. It tabled its report in August 2025.
The review examined the existing statutory and administrative arrangements for the ICAC, the Health Complaints Commissioner, the NT Ombudsman, and the NT auditor-general’s office.
The review consulted with key stakeholders including employees of each of those agencies and found that they were experiencing a number of challenges including underfunding, fragmentation, and duplication. However, it did not conduct broader consultation with the general public or professional bodies.
It reviewed alternate structural models and recommended the consolidation of the three agencies into a single integrity body led by an Integrity and Ethics Commissioner, supported by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and dedicated Assistant Commissioners responsible for each integrity function, with the auditor-general’s office remaining statutorily independent.
These changes were proposed with the intention of improving efficiency and economies of scale, streamlining oversight, and providing clarity about governance and accountability frameworks.
Criticism of the changes
The changes were passed despite vigorous criticism from the opposition party, independent MPs and the community. In parliament on Tuesday, Opposition Leader Selena Uibo criticised the legislation for being aimed primarily at cost cutting, and the government for failing to refer the Bill to the Legislative Scrutiny Committee.
Ms Uibo said that the Bill had been sprung on Territorians without any opportunity for comment and that the model proposed sought to erode ‘our institutions responsible for overseeing and upholding integrity and accountability in the Northern Territory.’
Independent MP Justine Davis has been very vocal in her opposition to the proposed changes over the past months, and established a committee scrutiny forum, inviting integrity experts, stakeholders, and members of the community to make submissions. The submissions made to that forum were tabled in parliament on Tuesday and can be viewed on Ms Davis’s website: https://www.justinedavis.com.au/community-scrutiny.
Ms Davis told parliament on Tuesday that all the submissions received by her office had opposed the proposed changes, or raised serious concerns about them. She said that the NT Government was engaging in a ‘dangerous structural experiment’, combining agencies with profoundly different functions into one, without adequate accountability processes to manage conflicts of interest, and without taking advice from integrity experts.
NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said that the changes were necessary as the current system was broken and Labour’s ICAC, introduced in 2018, had failed. The ICAC, established just seven years ago, has faced a number of court challenges as well as internal turmoil. Ms Finocchiaro said that public trust in the institution had been eroded and needed to be restored.
The IEC is expected to become operational in the first half of 2026.
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