The Australian Federal Police and financial crime agency Austrac have spent months probing the payments. But no charges have been laid, and sources aware of both agencies’ work, speaking anonymously to detail confidential investigations, said the National Anti-Corruption Commission or a commission of inquiry was needed to examine a money trail that spans 10 years and several governments.

A good way of putting to bed any concern that the NACC was partisan would be to go after both major parties’ involvement in our systematic torture of asylum seekers and refugees as the first matter before it.