ABSTRACT
The New South Wales (NSW) Legislative Council’s Code of Conduct (reproduced in Appendix 1) arose out of the so-called Greiner/Metherell affair. 1 In 1994, an amendment to the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 (NSW) was moved by the Independents in the Legislative Assembly. This amendment had two aims. First, it sought to expand the definition of corrupt conduct of ministers and members as presented in the existing Act. Secondly, it called for the establishment of an ethics committee for each house, whose duties would include the development of draft codes of conduct for members of the house. When this Bill was debated in the Legislative Council, 2 the Cross Benches, supported by the Labor Party, took the view that the provision in the Bill for three community members of the Ethics Committee was not appropriate. Accordingly, a Legislative Council committee was established to produce a separate code of conduct for the Legislative Council.
