Report on the Investigation of Alleged Public Sector Misconduct in Connection with the Activities of Lobbyists and Other Persons - The Hon Anthony David McRae MLA and Mr Rewi Edward Lyall

Summary

The report's own summary: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, pages 11 to 35

In the body's own words

1. Opinion

   The necessary four elements having been established on the balance of probabilities, it is the Commission’s opinion that Mr McRae’s conduct constitutes serious misconduct under sections 3 and 4(b) of the Act.

   Report on the Investigation of Alleged Public Sector Misconduct in Connection with the Activities of Lobbyists and Other Persons.pdf, page 29

2. Conclusion

   There is no evidence of misconduct by Mr Lyall in his dealings with Mr Grill concerning the Millbank on Moore development.

   Report on the Investigation of Alleged Public Sector Misconduct in Connection with the Activities of Lobbyists and Other Persons.pdf, page 32

Findings, opinions and statements

Allegations are not findings. A commission's finding or opinion of corrupt conduct or misconduct is not a finding that a person is guilty of a criminal offence, and the commissions say so in their reports.

No findings are reproduced in this record. This does not establish that the report contains none.

Recommendations 1

1. Recommendation

   [412] The Commission recommends consideration should not be given to the prosecution of Mr McRae. That is because the only potentially relevant offence would be one under section 83(c) of The Criminal Code. The elements of misconduct under section 4(b) of the Act are not the same as those required to establish an offence under section 83(c) of The Criminal Code. One of the essential elements which the prosecution would have to prove under the latter would be that Mr McRae acted corruptly “in the performance or discharge of the functions of his office”. The gravamen of his (mis)conduct here was his linking of his potential Ministerial approval of a development proposal, with his solicitation of fund-raising assistance. In fact, he had already discharged that particular function of his office – and it had been done entirely properly, based, as it was, on Departmental advice. Although in his telephone conversation with Mr Grill he deliberately conveyed the impression he still had to act in the performance or discharge of the functions of his office in relation to the Lombardo development application, in fact Mr McRae had already done so. There is, therefore, no sufficient prospect this element of an offence under section 83(c) could be established.

   Report on the Investigation of Alleged Public Sector Misconduct in Connection with the Activities of Lobbyists and Other Persons.pdf, page 159

Published responses

No published response was found.

Notes on this record

• Report type assigned by OPAX from the title; the Commission tags every listing item Report.

Coverage

This publisher

• The Commission's website has no copyright or licence page; reports carry the Commission's copyright notice (fair dealing only), so OPAX keeps short verbatim extracts with citations and links the original PDFs.
• Only the reports listing (/publications/reports) is covered. Annual reports, quarterly reports filed under /quarterly-reports, media releases and news items are not report records.
• The listing date is the date the Commission's page was created; the record date is the report's cover date or the tabling date stated on the page where one is given, and the listing date only as a fallback.
• Opinions are extracted only where the Commission states them in a sentence on a single page; opinions in older reports framed differently, or split over a page break, are not extracted (findings not_extracted).
• No text layer, no OCR: scanned reports have no extracted opinions or recommendations.