Last night, the National Anti-Corruption Commission CEO Phillip Reed faced a senate estimates hearing, where he, according to those in the room, didn’t look like he was having the greatest of times.

The NACC has been a bit of a fizzer so far, with questions over what it is actually investigating, and how those investigations are being managed. We don’t have a lot of insight into that, because Labor gave the Coalition it’s demand for secret hearings, in order to get bipartisan support (which it didn’t need, because the Greens and crossbench would have supported public hearings) for the establishment of the NACC. Jason Koutsoukis with The Saturday Paper reported over the weekend that was Albanese’s decision and he over ruled the push to have public hearings.

Before he was named NACC commissioner, Brereton worked at the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force and was head of the inquiry into Australian forces’ alleged war crimes in Afghanistan (the case is still ongoing). The ABC reported last month that Brereton was still giving advice to the IGADF, which makes sense because he was the commissioner of the review. But it’s a potential conflict of interest, which has already been an issue given Brereton had been found to have not fully recused himself from the decision to not investigate Robodebt, given his ‘close association’ with one of the people put forward for investigation.

There is no suggestion of wrong doing by Brereton in either case. But it did make for some uncomfortable questioning for Reed overnight (Reed defended the commissioner)