Professor Gabrielle Appleby, Centre for public Integrity, July 2026
If you’re thinking about running for public office, chances are you’ve thought about ‘integrity’ in one form or another.
At the least (I hope), you’ve probably given some thought to being a politician who acts with integrity. You may also be thinking of running on a campaign platform that includes reforms to strengthen integrity in government. And if elected, you will quickly discover that politicians themselves perform important integrity functions in the form of scrutinising other public officials.
Over the past twenty years I’ve worked inside governments, advised parliaments, studied and taught constitutional law, and more recently led the research program at the Centre for Public Integrity.
What I’ve learnt in that time is that integrity isn’t simply about avoiding corruption – it’s about making sure public power is exercised in the public interest. And that depends both on the integrity of individuals working in the system, as well as the rules, institutions, and processes that must be in place to support integrity.
Here are ten things that I wish every aspiring politician knew before putting their name on the ballot paper.
- Public office is a public trust.
- Integrity is more than avoiding corruption.
- Politics is often a team sport, but integrity is personal.
- Good government cannot rely on good people alone, it requires a multitude of guardrails.
- Relationships are important but be wary of preferential access.
- Conflicts of interest are not accusations of misconduct, but they must be managed.
- Transparency protects honest politicians and drives good decision making.
- Money doesn’t have to buy decisions to distort democracy.
- Today’s administrative shortcut can become tomorrow’s integrity scandal.
- Democracy depends on integrity as much as efficiency.
1. Public office is a public trust.
The great public law professor and Federal Court Judge Paul Finn argued that public office is held ‘in trust’ for the community, the public. This idea should be a founding principle for anyone entering politics.
Public officers, including elected officeholders, are entrusted to exercise their power on behalf of the public. That means decisions should never be directed towards your own interests, or those of your family, friends, colleagues, donors or political party. They must always be justified as serving the public interest.
Just as importantly, the public interest is not simply whatever a majority of voters happen to prefer at a particular moment. Although that is always a temptation, representative democracy expects elected representatives to govern for the whole community, including minorities and future generations.
2. Integrity is more than avoiding corruption.
When people hear the word ‘integrity’, they often think about corruption. There’s no doubt the two are linked, and corrupt conduct will amount to a failure of integrity. But integrity is more than just this.
Corruption is generally understood as the misuse of entrusted public power for private gain. It attracts criminal sanctions in serious cases. Integrity is something much broader.
Ethicists sometimes draw a distinction between morality (knowing what is right) and integrity (acting on that knowledge). In public office, the concept has taken on a slightly different meaning.
The former NSW Chief Justice James Spigelman observed that integrity requires a person to act legally, as well as consistently with the public purpose for which a power has been conferred, and in accordance with the public values of the institution. Former Commonwealth Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, Professor John McMillan has similarly argued that integrity is about ensuring that public power is exercised not just without corruption, but in a way that respects the values that underpin institutional integrity and public virtue, and for the public interest, consistently with the purposes for which it was conferred, and in accordance with the values of public office.
To get at the question of integrity, then, a useful question to ask is not simply:
‘Am I allowed to do this?’
But:
‘Is this the right use of the public power that has been entrusted to me?’
3. Politics is often a team sport, but integrity is personal.
Politics is rarely an individual endeavour. Political parties, cabinets, councils and parliamentary teams all depend upon trust, cooperation and collective decision-making. Loyalty is an important political virtue. But integrity is a personal responsibility.
You remain responsible for your own conduct, your own decisions, and the standards you uphold. If you see conduct that falls below those standards, your responsibility is not extinguished because ‘the team’ has decided otherwise.
Integrity sometimes requires asking difficult questions, speaking uncomfortable truths, or insisting that proper processes are followed.
Of course, in a well-functioning system, individuals are supported in acting with integrity through institutional rules, institutions and processes.
4. Good government cannot rely on good people alone, it requires a multitude of guardrails.
Democracy cannot rely on the assumption that good people will always make good decisions, or that third parties will always report bad conduct that they witness.
One of the mistakes that can be made is assuming integrity begins and ends with integrity officers such as anti-corruption commissions. In reality, integrity depends on an entire integrity ecosystem. As Professors AJ Brown and Charles Sampford have observed, public integrity is protected through an elaborate system, or ‘bird’s nest’ of overlapping institutions, rules and processes.
These will include the traditional oversight role played by the courts and scrutiny of the government by the Parliament. Today, it also includes independent integrity agencies such as the auditor-general, ombudsmen and anti-corruption commissions, and rules and processes such as a strong FOI regime, robust whistleblower protections, regulation of electoral finance and lobbyists, a culture of independent government appointments, and enforceable codes of conduct.
These guardrails are not simply designed to catch misconduct after it occurs. They also help public officers make better decisions in the first place. Freedom of information encourages better record-keeping and policy development. Auditors-General improve administration. Ombudsmen resolve problems before they escalate. Anti-corruption commissions increasingly perform education and prevention roles alongside investigation.
5. Relationships are important but be wary of preferential access.
To be a successful politician you will need to rely heavily on relationships. You need to understand your community. You need to meet with businesses, charities, unions, community groups, experts and constituents. Good representatives listen widely to all stakeholders.
But this translates to an integrity question when those relationships begin to translate into unequal influence – whether that be over policy, appointments or decisions. You should always be asking yourself:
‘Who am I meeting with?’
‘Are there people getting repeated access?’
‘Whose phone calls do I return, and whose do I not?’
‘Who have I not heard from or spoken to?’
Integrity measures such as lobbying registers, ministerial diaries and disclosure requirements are mechanisms for maintaining public confidence that relationships and access is not becoming privilege and undue influence.
6. Conflicts of interest are not accusations of misconduct, but they must be managed.
No one is ‘impartial’ or totally unbiased.
Even the impartial judge is a fiction. Because everyone has interests. Professional relationships. Friendships. Previous employment. Investments. Political loyalties. Family connections.
Having a conflict of interest is not, in itself, misconduct.
The problem arises when conflicts are hidden, ignored or poorly managed. One of the strongest indicators of an integrity culture is not that conflicts never arise, but that people recognise them early, declare them openly, and manage them appropriately, even when doing so is inconvenient.
Transparency is always better than pretending impartiality where it does not exist.
7. Transparency protects honest politicians and drives good decision making.
Many politicians think transparency exists to catch wrongdoing, but it also protects those acting honestly, and acts as a driver for good decision making.
Publishing reasons for decisions, disclosing donations, meetings with lobbyists and interests, responding to freedom of information requests, producing documents to the parliament, maintaining proper records and explaining decisions all help demonstrate that public power has been exercised fairly and for proper reasons.
But transparency isn’t just about revealing, it will change how decisions are made.
Of course, governments sometimes require confidentiality. Cabinet discussions, national security, legal advice and personal privacy may all justify secrecy in particular circumstances. But the starting point in a democracy should always be openness.
8. Money doesn’t have to buy decisions to distort democracy.
When people think about political corruption, they often imagine a bribe. But, as the High Court recognised in McCloy v New South Wales, the risks are much broader.
The Court identified three kinds of risks from political donations. The first is the familiar form of ‘quid pro quo’ corruption: money exchanged for political favours. The second is ‘clientelism’: where politicians become increasingly dependent on wealthy supporters, gradually allowing those relationships to shape priorities and decision-making. The third is ‘war chest corruption’: where unequal financial resources distort electoral competition itself by making it increasingly difficult for new voices to compete on equal terms.
Protecting democracy from the distorting influence of money therefore requires much more than preventing bribery. It requires rules that maintain public confidence that money is not becoming political power.
9. Today’s administrative shortcut can become tomorrow’s integrity scandal.
Few integrity scandals begin with someone deciding to act corruptly. More often they begin with familiar phrases such as ‘we’re under a lot of pressure’, ‘it’s only this once’, ‘this will be far more efficient’, ‘everyone does it’.
But small departures from good process often accumulate. A meeting goes undocumented. A conflict isn’t declared. A procurement process is bypassed. A travel entitlement is stretched. An exception becomes routine.
Integrity is often less about resisting dramatic temptations than resisting ordinary shortcuts.
10. Democracy depends on integrity as much as efficiency.
Governments are often under pressure to act quickly. At times, that urgency is genuine. But in a democracy, good government is not judged solely by the speed, efficiency or cost-effectiveness of its decision-making. It is also judged by the quality of its decisions and, critically, by the integrity of the processes through which they are made.
Democratic decision-making requires more than reaching an outcome.
It means giving those affected a fair opportunity to be heard, engaging in genuine consultation with stakeholders, providing accessible avenues for independent review and complaints, acting transparently, and respecting the scrutiny and law-making role of parliament.
These procedural safeguards are not obstacles to good government; they are essential features of it.
They enhance the legitimacy of public decisions, so that even those who disagree with the outcome can have confidence that it was reached fairly. They also improve the quality of government decisions by exposing proposals to scrutiny, identifying unintended consequences, and drawing on a wider range of expertise and experience.
More about the Centre for Public Integrity
The Centre for Public Integrity is an independent research institute dedicated to restoring integrity to the foundations of Australia’s democracy. They work to prevent corruption, protect the integrity of accountability institutions, rein in executive power, and eliminate the undue influence of big money in politics.
About Professor Gabrielle Appleby
Dr Gabrielle Appleby is a professor in public law at the Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney, the Director of The Judiciary Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, and the Research Director at the Centre for Public Integrity.
Gabrielle has shaped national understanding of executive accountability, judicial integrity, and parliamentary practice. Gabrielle is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and founding editor of AUSPUBLAW, the national public law blog.
Her books include The Failure of the Voice Referendum and the Future of Australian Democracy (2026) and The Judge, The Judiciary and the Court: Individual, Collegial and Institutional Judicial Dynamics in Australia (2021).
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