Public Sector Codes of Conduct

A public sector code of conduct is a documented set of behavioural standards binding the employees of a government agency, forming the eighth of the ten components in the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission's Fraud and Corruption Control Framework. In Queensland, codes of conduct are not free-standing policy documents but are anchored directly in statute, giving them a legal force and a set of associated obligations that go beyond internal human resources policy.

1 Legislative anchor: the Public Sector Ethics Act

The Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (PSE Act) is the foundational statute for codes of conduct across the Queensland public sector. Rather than prescribing conduct rule by rule, the PSE Act establishes a set of overarching ethics principles from which individual agency codes, and the sector-wide code, are derived. This structure means an agency-level code of conduct cannot lawfully be weaker than, or inconsistent with, the ethics principles set out in the Act, giving codes of conduct a stable statutory floor even as specific behavioural guidance is updated over time.

2 The four ethics principles

Section 4(2) of the PSE Act sets out four ethics principles that anchor every code of conduct in the Queensland public sector.

Integrity and impartiality requires public officials to act honestly, and to exercise their official functions without being improperly influenced by personal interest, prejudice, or partiality.

Promoting the public good requires that official powers be exercised in a way that genuinely advances the public interest, rather than the private interest of the official or of any particular individual or group.

Commitment to the system of government requires officials to support the lawful processes and institutions of government, including cooperating properly with oversight bodies and respecting the separation of political and administrative functions.

Accountability and transparency requires officials to be answerable for their decisions and actions, and to conduct official business in a way that is open to appropriate scrutiny, a principle that also underlies the client and community awareness component of the wider framework.

3 The Code of Conduct for the Queensland Public Service

Section 11 of the PSE Act requires the sector-wide Code of Conduct for the Queensland Public Service to apply to all employees of Queensland Government agencies covered by the Act, establishing a common behavioural baseline regardless of the specific agency or role an employee occupies. Individual agencies may supplement this baseline with agency-specific codes addressing risks particular to their function, such as detailed conflict-of-interest provisions for regulatory agencies or additional confidentiality provisions for agencies handling sensitive personal information, but they may not use an agency code to dilute the sector-wide standard.

4 Training and reporting obligations

The PSE Act imposes specific obligations on chief executive officers connected to the code of conduct. Section 12K requires chief executives to ensure employees receive education and training in the ethics principles and the code of conduct, embedding the code within the job-life-cycle training approach described in Organisational Culture Change. Section 12M requires agencies to report annually on their compliance and training activity under the Act, creating a public accountability mechanism that complements the internal disciplinary mechanisms described below.

5 Disciplinary pathways

While the ethics principles and the sector-wide code of conduct apply broadly, the disciplinary pathway that follows a breach differs depending on the sector of employment. For employees covered by the Public Service Act 2008, breaches of the code of conduct are dealt with under that Act's disciplinary provisions, which set out grounds for discipline, the process for investigating suspected breaches, and the range of sanctions available. For local government employees and councillors, the relevant disciplinary framework instead sits in the Local Government Act 2009, which establishes its own conduct and performance regime, including referral pathways for councillor conduct matters that differ materially from the public service model. This bifurcation means that an organisation operating across both sectors, or a practitioner advising across both, cannot assume a single disciplinary process applies uniformly.

6 Review cycle

Consistent with the review expectations set out elsewhere in the Fraud and Corruption Control Framework, the guide recommends that codes of conduct be formally reviewed at least every two years, to ensure the code keeps pace with changes in legislation, emerging risk areas, and lessons learned from disciplinary cases or corruption investigations conducted under the investigation component of the framework.

7 Comparison: the National Anti-Corruption Commission

At the Commonwealth level, a broadly analogous but distinct concept appears in the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022, which at section 8(1) defines "corrupt conduct" for the purposes of the federal National Anti-Corruption Commission. Rather than a principles-based ethics statute feeding into agency codes, as in the Queensland model, the federal definition operates directly as the jurisdictional trigger for the National Anti-Corruption Commission's own investigative powers. The comparison illustrates two different legislative design choices for anchoring integrity standards, one built around ethics principles and codes of conduct enforced through ordinary employment discipline, the other built around a statutory definition of corrupt conduct enforced through a dedicated standing commission. Further detail on the federal model is covered in the dedicated article on the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

See also: Fraud and Corruption Control Framework, Organisational Culture Change, National Anti-Corruption Commission.

References

1. Crime and Corruption Commission (Queensland), Fraud and Corruption Control: Best Practice Guide, March 2018, ISBN 978-1-876986-86-5.
2. Public Sector Ethics Act 1994 (Qld), s. 4(2), s. 11, s. 12K, s. 12M.
3. Public Service Act 2008 (Qld).
4. Local Government Act 2009 (Qld).
5. National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022 (Cth), s. 8(1).