Retired judges have blasted the Morrison government’s failed promise on the federal anti-corruption commission as a “massive policy failure”, saying the Coalition’s justification for backing away from the commitment was “spurious”.

The Coalition is under criticism for its inability to present legislation creating its planned anti-corruption commission, after pledging to do so prior to the previous election.

Scott Morrison and other Liberal MPs have attempted to blame a lack of Labor support for its inability to enact the watchdog, an argument slammed by Labor’s Chris Bowen as a “farce” and “complete nonsense”.

An ex-Supreme Court judge who now chairs the Centre for Public Integrity in New South Wales said that the government’s claimed justification for not enacting the anti-corruption commission is “very ridiculous.”

“The actual reason for this major policy failure is because, with a litany of outrageous rorts uncovered in audit reports, this administration seeks to escape appropriate scrutiny and being held publically accountable,” he told the Guardian.

When the government’s plan was made public as an exposure draught, several critics blasted it as a “protection racket” for elected officials.

It could not hold public hearings on allegations of government corruption, despite the fact that it allows such hearings on issues of law enforcement, and it places an almost impossibly high bar on the initiation of investigations. Professor Anne Twomey, one of the nation’s greatest legal thinkers, blasted it as a “shamefully inadequate system, which looks geared to insulate the dishonest from investigation”.

A Guardian study concluded the bar for commencing investigations was so high that the planned watchdog would have been allowed to probe just two of 40 recent political crises.

Liberal MP Andrew Bragg was questioned on the Coalition’s inability to legislate on ABC’s Q+A on Thursday night, and sought to blame Labor for its lack of support. Bragg said he planned to legislate the watchdog in the Coalition’s next term.

“We’ve attempted to build an important institution and that hasn’t been achievable and the Labor party wouldn’t agree so we’ll have to do it alone in the next term if we are returned to government,” he added.

The remark was welcomed with laughs. Bowen, also present on the panel, claimed the plan offered by the Coalition was a “joke”.

“Experts have indicated you would be better off doing nothing,” he continued. “But to this entire farce of an argument that somehow they couldn’t present legislation, they haven’t even introduced the law, because the Labor party wouldn’t sign on to it, that’s a really intriguing development.

“So supposedly now the administration is not going to present any laws unless we agree beforehand. This is excellent news! That’s fantastic news! It implies we now have power of veto as the opposition. This is absolutely total nonsense.”

Frontbenchers Stuart Robert and Simon Birmingham both stated the Coalition would explore forming the body if they won another term.

“We’ll be back, and we’ll endeavour to get it moving via a bipartisan level,” Robert said on Friday.

This concept would be mandated for implementation by Birmingham if the Coalition were to be victorious in May. That’s despite the pledge being made before to the previous election, which the Coalition won.

We will not legislate for the sort of star chamber approach that has destroyed reputations in NSW, he added.

Whealy said the Coalition’s explanation for its broken pledge was “quite spurious” and labelled it as a “massive policy failure”.

To put it another way, can we have faith in the Coalition to keep its commitments and do so in an open and transparent manner? he said.

On Friday the Centre for Public Integrity issued a fresh study suggesting the ability to conduct public hearings was “critical” to the success of recent Victorian Ibac and NSW Icac investigations.

The NSW Icac was able to expose wrongdoing to the public in 42 public hearings and 39 public reports between 2012-13 and 2019-20.

An ex-counsel for NSW Icac observed, “Sunlight is the finest disinfectant. Watson, now a director at the Centre for Public Integrity, said “many investigations would not be effective without them”.

“Corruption grows in the dark,” he remarked. “Without public hearings the public may not find out about corruption probes until years after the event, if at all.”

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