Documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal that Paul Brereton, Australia’s National Anti-Corruption Commission commissioner, continued providing critical advice to the Australian Defence Force after claiming to have resigned from his role as Assistant Inspector-General in 2023.
The arrangement has drawn criticism from senators David Shoebridge and David Pocock, as well as expert Geoffrey Watson, who argue it undermines the NACC’s independence, especially with Defence facing 120 corruption referrals since the commission’s inception.
Brereton has recused himself from six Defence-related cases, but no resignation documents have been identified, and the government has not commented as of September 29, 2025.
NACC Commr Paul Brereton under fire after being found to be lying through his teeth when claiming he quit his role of assistant Inspector-General of Defence as FOI docs reveal he did not quit & continued to provide “critical” advice to the current IG of Defence
So he’s secretly continued in his assistant Inspector General of Defence role, despite publicly declaring he had quit the role as required for his current role, to have no conflict of interest.
This is absolutely shocking. He is still there refusing to resign, does not care.
After concerns of NACC Commr Paul Brereton’s involvement in Defence, NACC issued statement to Senate on his behalf claiming he “resigned” from his ADF role “in May of 2023”
An FOI reqst for resignation docs resulted in ‘nothing found’
There’s no evidence he resigned.
2 salaries?
In response to questions, NACC admitted the Commissioner “occasionally” still acts in his assistant IG of the ADF role
Define occasionally, whenever the hell he feels like it?
And why is it that there is no current Deputy Inspector General of Defence, nobody replaced Brereton?
He has been exposed as having other undisclosed conflicts…and he was the architect of the Afghan war crimes investigation cover up…the NACC itself is a corruption scheme