ACC-Australian Crime Commission-new gestapo born in secret. JOHN Howard has brokered a deal for a new national law enforcement body, with two controversial Carr government advisers helping him clinch an agreement with the states. Advertisement A secret meeting in the Prime Minister's Sydney office on Wednesday sealed the fate of the troubled National Crime Authority, and in its place will rise the Australian Crime Commission. The NCA will cease to exist in December, when the ACC will take over its coercive hearing and telephone interception powers. Since a falling-out last year, Mr Howard has been keen to sideline the NCA. The ACC will broadly take the form proposed unanimously by the states but rejected two weeks ago by the federal Government, with a charter to fight organised crime and the emerging threat of terrorism. The deal was finalised yesterday, following Wednesday's meeting attended by three Howard advisers and two proxies for NSW Police Minister Michael Costa – academic Richard Basham and former detective Tim Priest. Another Costa adviser, former NSW Police Internal Affairs commander Geoff Schuberg, is expected to become the ACC's director of operations. The ACC will be chaired by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty. Its hearings will be conducted by an official chosen from the ranks of senior criminal lawyers. Former Queensland crime commissioner Tim Carmody is considered a front-runner for the job. Crucial to this week's deal was the federal Government's concession that the ACC will have its own in-house investigative capacity. It will not be just an intelligence assessment agency as originally proposed. In return, the states have agreed to fund the secondment of police from their forces to the national body. For the past eight years, the commonwealth has footed the NCA's bill. The states will formally approve the new commission at a meeting of police ministers in Sydney on Friday. Neither federal Justice Minister Chris Ellison nor Mr Costa, who acted as negotiator on behalf of the states, would comment yesterday. Spokespeople for both ministers would only say discussions this week had been "productive". Both levels of government have agreed to include ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson on the ACC's new board – involving the spy agency in domestic crime fighting for the first time. The commonwealth also has agreed to give up a board spot that was to be taken by one of its agencies, meaning voting numbers are split evenly between the states and Canberra. Final details about the ACC's budget and personnel were being finalised yesterday, but a plan suggested earlier this week to retain only half the NCA's investigators has been dropped. Mr Basham's and Mr Priest's involvement in the deal comes eight months after they joined Mr Costa's inner circle – Mr Basham as an adviser in his office and Mr Priest initially as an adviser but now as an informal confidant who works out of the University of Sydney's criminology department. Both had objected vigorously to some senior police management in the NSW force, particularly crime management in the western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta. In April the contract of a key target, then police commissioner Peter Ryan, was terminated. The ACC will be chartered to attack organised crime in a more vigorous manner than its predecessor. Figures provided to the federal Government this week showed that the NCA last year achieved lesser results than the NSW and Queensland crime commissions. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4830105%255E60... Police minister is an ex-trot and is on medication for self diagnosed manic depresion,kinda reminds me of jamesd... http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/02/1028157844696.html The very model of the modern major medicated police minister.