Gavin Hanlon, who was G-MW chief executive officer from 2011 to 2014, had been accused of leaking confidential information to an irrigator group, which arose from an ABC television documentary called: Pumped: Who is benefitting from the billions spent on the Murray-Darling?
At the time he was deputy director general of NSW DPI (Water).
The commission found that Mr Hanlon did appreciate that his sharing with an irrigator reference group what he considered to be the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s likely recommendation for the northern basin review recovery target figures was an act of preference towards irrigators over other stakeholders.
The commission was satisfied that Mr Hanlon engaged in conduct that involved the misuse of information or material that he acquired in the course of the exercise of his official functions, in breach of the Code of Conduct and his employment contractual obligations.
“He deliberately disclosed sensitive government information, without proper authority, to an exclusive group of irrigation industry representatives,” the commission said.
“Mr Hanlon’s conduct was ‘improper’, in the sense that it was wholly focused on the industry stakeholder group.
“Although the commission finds on the objective facts that Mr Hanlon’s breach of his public official obligations is very serious, it does not find Mr Hanlon’s subjective intent or motivation to have been improper and does not find that he wilfully misconducted himself.
“Taking into account the atmosphere he was working in, his subjective motive, purpose and intent, the commission finds that he was doing what he thought was expected of him.”
The investigation found that government departments with responsibility for water management had made decisions and taken approaches that were inconsistent with the Water Management Act, ICAC concluded.
The development and implementation of the 2012 Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan represented a failure to adhere to the priorities set out in the Act, ICAC found.
“By repeatedly focusing on the interests of the irrigation industry, the Department of Primary Industries and predecessor agencies have undermined the water-sharing principles in the legislation,” ICAC found in its summary of the allegations arising from the ABC report.
“The department shut out environmental agencies when doing stakeholder consultation because of its focus on irrigators.
“The result was that environmental perspectives were sidelined from policy discussions, which were vulnerable to ‘improper favouritism'.”
Mr Hanlon resigned from his NSW DPI position in 2017. He is also a former managing director of Coliban Water.
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