A Royal Commission Built on Compromised Architecture
A Royal Commission Built on Compromised Architecture
If a Royal Commission is to mean anything, its architecture must be beyond reproach. Independence is not a decorative feature — it is the load‑bearing wall. Remove it, weaken it, or even appear to tamper with it, and the entire structure becomes unstable.
That is precisely the problem with the government’s decision to appoint Justice Virginia Bell — a jurist whose ideological alignment with the Prime Minister is well‑documented — to lead a Commission that is supposed to scrutinise the very ecosystem from which she emerged.
This is not a question of competence. It is a question of institutional design.
1. The Independence Test Has Already Failed
Every integrity framework — from WHS investigations to anti‑corruption inquiries — begins with the same threshold question:
Would a reasonable person perceive the investigator as independent?
In this case, the answer is already compromised. The appointment creates a structural conflict of interest, not because Bell cannot act impartially, but because the public cannot be expected to believe she will. Perception is the currency of accountability. Once spent, it cannot be reclaimed.
2. The Government Has Breached the Principle of “Arms-Length Scrutiny”
In governance, proximity is risk.
Proximity of ideology
Proximity of networks
Proximity of worldview
These factors create what auditors call “soft capture” — the subtle, unspoken alignment that shapes outcomes long before evidence is examined. A Royal Commission must be insulated from this. Instead, the government has embedded it.
3. The Appointment Undermines Procedural Legitimacy
A Royal Commission’s power is not just legal; it is moral. Its findings carry weight because the public believes the process was untainted. When the chair is drawn from the same ideological orbit as the government, the legitimacy of the process is weakened before the first witness is sworn.
This is not a theoretical concern. It is a governance failure with real consequences:
Witnesses may perceive the process as biased
Public confidence may erode
Findings may be dismissed as politically curated
A Commission that begins with a credibility deficit rarely recovers.
4. The Government Has Engineered a Controlled Risk Environment
This appointment signals a government seeking risk management, not truth‑finding.
A genuinely independent chair introduces uncertainty — the possibility of uncomfortable findings, unanticipated lines of inquiry, and politically inconvenient truths. By selecting someone ideologically aligned, the government has reduced that uncertainty. It has created a Commission with guardrails.
This is not accountability. It is containment.
5. The Precedent Is Dangerous
If governments can appoint ideological allies to investigate themselves, the Royal Commission model becomes vulnerable to political capture. The precedent is corrosive:
Future governments will feel entitled to do the same
Public trust in Commissions will deteriorate
The integrity architecture of the nation will weaken
Once the public begins to see Royal Commissions as political instruments rather than independent tribunals, their value collapses.
6. The Real Issue Is Not Bell — It’s the System That Allowed This
This appointment exposes a deeper flaw: Australia lacks a transparent, bipartisan, merit‑based selection process for Royal Commission leadership. Until that changes, every government will be tempted to choose comfort over scrutiny.
And the public will continue to pay the price.
