NSW Inquiry Recommends that Watchdog Be Established to Oversee the DPP

A New South Wales parliamentary committee inquiry into Identity Protections for Proceedings Involving Children earlier this month recommended that a standing committee be established to provide oversight of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, further suggesting that an inquiry be held into whether NSW DPP Sally Dowling SC be removed from office over a leaked story.

The story involved an ODPP media manager providing 2GB shock jock Ben Fordham with a screenshot revealing that NSW District Court Judge Penelope Wass SC had asked a 17-year-old First Nations boy about to be sentenced over a break and enter involving elderly women to perform an acknowledgement of Country prior to proceedings. And the screenshot contained the boy’s name.

On reporting the matter in October 2024, Fordham didn’t reveal the boy’s name, which is prohibited under law. And during hearings into the matter, Dowling insisted that she never gave permission for the leaking of the story during a meeting with three others, as she’d been distracted by work on her phone. Yet, the DPP and the judge were then involved in an ongoing dispute at the time. 

The names of minors involved in criminal trials and in care and protection hearings cannot be published or broadcast by the media in NSW. The names of young offenders are withheld in this state, as it’s considered that it will assist in the individual’s rehabilitation and recovery, whilst the “naming and shaming” of under 18-year-olds who break the law creates future harms.

The committee report was released on 7 July 2026, and the NSW Labor government is yet to respond to it. However, NSW attorney general Michael Daley has condemned the inquiry report as a “stitch-up” and claimed that the recommendations aren’t supported by the evidence, which as it stands has Dowling denying she approved the leaking of the story under oath, which was left undisputed.

Loose lips sink ships

ODPP media manager Sally Killoran explained, during a 17 December 2025 committee hearing, that she’d raised leaking the story about Judge Wass at a 24 October 2024 meeting that also involved Dowling, an external media advisor and an ODPP legal advisor, and she’d considered that as “no-one objected to this suggestion”, she’d therefore been given “approval to pitch the story”.

Dowling told the committee that she didn’t consider that Killoran was suggesting that she leak the story to the media, and she insisted that it was not her “intention to give that authorisation or any impression of that kind”. The NSW DPP also stated that she did “not dispute that Ms Killoran had a mistaken understanding that she was authorised to raise the story with 2GB”.

Judge Wass claims that the DPP directed the media manager to leak the story to defame her. The judicial officer explained that an ongoing dispute motivated this act, which she added had involved her and other NSW District Court judges raising issue alleging that the DPP had been progressing sexual assault cases through the courts that had no chance of success since late 2022.

Wass further told the committee that the NSW DPP had approached the NSW Chief Judge in May 2024 and raised grievances about her performance in three cases. The judge complained about this to the NSW Bar Association twice over 2024 and added that she was not the only judge who considered that the ODPP had been running sexual assault cases with a lack of credible evidence.

The majority of members on the parliamentary committee were “not persuaded by Ms Dowling’s explanation”, however, rather they found it “difficult to accept that Ms Killoran’s proposal could have been raised without Ms Dowling having some appreciation of its nature and implications, and without some level of authorisation – whether explicit or implicit – being conveyed”.

The law against naming child offenders

The incident regarding the leak to 2GB was not only of heightened significance due to suggestions that the office that independently determines which criminal prosecutions proceed in NSW and hence, provides the critical role of ensuring such matters aren’t the subject of political interference, but it was also because the name of a child offender had been provided to the press.

Section 15A of the Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 (NSW) (CCP Act) contains the prohibition on publishing or broadcasting the name of a defendant who is the subject of criminal proceedings and was a child at the time the alleged offence had been committed. This ban further covers child witnesses, minors involved in a criminal cases or an alleged offender’s siblings.

The prohibition includes print, radio and televised media, as well as the publishing a name on the internet. It applies prior to, during and after any criminal proceedings. It also holds in terms of whether the individual is no longer a child or if they’re deceased, and the ban further applies to any other information that might identify a person.

In terms of penalisation, an individual convicted of this crime faces maximum penalties of up to 12 months imprisonment and/or a $5,500 fine, while a corporation can be fined $55,000 for committing this act.

The Children (Criminal Proceedings) Amendment (Naming of Children) Bill 2009 inserted section 15A into the CCP Act. At the time, then NSW attorney general John Hatzistergos explained that a number of reforms were being implemented under division 3A of the CCP Act, as well as in other legislation nationwide to ensure that there was a uniform guidance on these matters across jurisdictions.

A watchdog for all occasions

The committee’s recommendation that the ODPP have an oversight body monitoring its work has caused broad controversy, as the Director of Public Prosecutions is supposed to be an impartial body that determines which potential cases have the merit to be progressed, and, in accordance with the democratic doctrine of the separation of powers, this is to be free from political interference.

In its report, the committee outlines that if the ODPP continues to leak information to the press in this way, it will have gained a new power that would comprise of being able to “pitch and create negative media stories about defendants, judicial officers and others”, and this could further lead to a situation where third parties might try to influence how the DPP is shaping public opinion.

But in writing an opinion piece last week, NSW Labor MLC Stephen Lawrence suggested that while the outrage around ensuring that the NSW DPP remains free of outside interference is understandable, it was also “misconceived”, as there are other NSW bastions of authority that maintain their independence despite having an oversight body monitoring them.

Lawrence pointed out that the NSW Committee on the Ombudsman, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission and the Crime Commission already monitors these fiercely independent authorities and the sky is yet to have fallen in.

Indeed, the 1990-established body also monitors the Information Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner, the Inspector of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, the Inspector of Custodial Services and the NSW Public Service Commissioner.

“As the work of our now concluded committee shows, scrutiny of power matters, is no easy task and is essential to good government. That our officials are doing the right thing can never just be assumed,” the Labor upper house member made clear.

“The people now need an ongoing role in scrutinising the DPP, no matter what the legal establishment says.”