AFP Association blasts Scott Morrison's 'downright offensive' anti-corruption model

The Prime Minister has railed against public hearings, claiming they create "kangaroo courts" trashing reputations before findings of corruption are made.

But his proposal only exempts politicians and public servants, not law enforcement or legal officials, from being tried in public view, leaving integrity experts to accuse the Coalition of "complete hypocrisy".

Australian Federal Police Association president Alex Caruana said the plan implies police officers, who cannot hold their roles with a criminal conviction, are "less human than politicians".

"Any inference that politicians are less likely to be corrupt [than police officers] is downright offensive, and I think you could ask the court of public opinion," he said.

"I think there is a vast, vast difference in who the community would trust."

Mr Caruana accepted there is a "time and a place" for police and politicians to face public hearings, provided there are safeguards to protect matters of national security.

"Where the court deems that it's in the public interest to have an open court ... then what have politicians got to hide?" he said.

"Why don't they want to have public hearings? It asks more questions than it gives answers."

Mr Morrison refused to answer directly when pressed on the apparent hypocrisy on Tuesday, saying only the government had invested $60 million towards establishing the body.

"I've addressed those issues on numerous occasions," he said.

But his particular fixation has been the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, which he has consistently attacked over its investigation into former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The watchdog aired tapes of Ms Berejiklian telling her then-secret boyfriend, disgraced former NSW MP Daryl Maguire, she would "throw money" at his seat of Wagga Wagga, and that she did not "need to know" about his dealings.

The calls were made after Ms Berejiklian accepted Maguire's resignation for corruption, and while the pair were still in a relationship.

Mr Morrison in November minimised the investigation as a probe into "who her boyfriend was", claiming she had been "done over" by a "shameful" process.

The Centre for Public Integrity's Stephen Charles, a former judge who advised the Victorian government on its own watchdog, described the intervention as a "very foolish outburst", designed to distract from Mr Morrison's broken election promise.

"It's arrant hypocrisy, complete hypocrisy," he said.

"He's perfectly happy to have law enforcement officers ... he's perfectly happy to have judges ... and he's perfectly happy to have the banking profession all giving evidence in public."

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Mr Charles described public hearings as a "key part" of an anti-corruption watchdog's work, saying they encourage further whistleblowers to come forward while educating the public service and the public.

Politicians would also be wary of electoral backlash if their wrongdoing could be aired in public, he said.

"Above all, it acts as a very strong deterrence against people in public carrying on in that way, because they face the risk of it being brought up in public and [their] corruption exposed," he said.

It came as NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption Commissioner Stephen Rushton told a NSW parliamentary review people referring to the ICAC as a "kangaroo court" were "buffoons".

Mr Rushton said the "uniformed comment" had the potential to undermine the commission's work, and public confidence in public administration.

"To those buffoons who have repeatedly described this commission as a kangaroo court, I would say ... it is deeply offensive to the hard-working staff of the commission. It undermines the institution," he said.

"To describe us as a kangaroo court is not just misleading, but untrue."

NSW ICAC chief commissioner Peter Hall also took a thinly-veiled swipe at the Prime Minister, saying corruption often took place in "conditions of great secrecy".

"Occasionally, there is misguided and unfounded criticism ... of the commission's powers and its work," he said.

"Whatever the motive or the purpose behind such criticism may be, a proper understanding of the legal conditions, processes of the oversight safeguards, will reveal to the misguided critic that he or she is simply wrong."

- With AAP