National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton is scheduled for his first appearance before a senate estimates committee on Tuesday.
He's likely to be grilled over a series of alleged conflicts of interest which ultimately led to him announcing plans to leave the agency on July 6.
Mr Brereton said ongoing questions about the conflicts had distracted from the work of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, with politicians involved in setting up the agency calling for a "reset" in leadership.
In 2025, the former war crimes investigator stepped away from all defence-related corruption referrals to avoid any perceived conflict of interest, after revelations he was continuing to work with the inspector general of the Australian Defence Force as a consultant.
A separate inquiry into the NACC's decision not to follow up referrals from the royal commission into Robodebt found Mr Brereton should have removed himself from the decision-making process because he was affected by apprehended bias, but did not make any findings of intentional wrongdoing or impropriety.
After reconsidering its decision, the commission eventually found two public servants had engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
Independent MP Helen Haines, who spent years advocating for a federal corruption watchdog and now sits on its oversight committee, said the hiring of the next commissioner needed to be a transparent, merit-based process.
"We need to understand decisions made around who is the best candidate, and we absolutely need to be very, very clear - and the public needs to see that - conflicts of interest, perceived conflicts of interest, are declared and managed," she told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
Dr Haines is helping launch a report from the Centre for Public Integrity on Tuesday, which calls for major reforms to protect integrity agencies from outside influence.
The report suggests an independent panel be set up to choose the heads of federal and state corruption watchdogs, auditors and ombudsman offices, with criteria for the role written into legislation.
"This will ensure that the executive branch is not able to run a closed, internal process that focuses only on 'acceptable candidates'," the report says.
The report also calls for corruption agencies to have their year-to-year funding all but locked in by separating it from other budget spending.
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