The decision to introduce a bill that radically overhauls the structure of the Independent Commission Against Corruption in the face of warnings from commissioners past and present that it will seriously weaken the organisation is extraordinary.

Baird is fond of repeating the mantra that he and his government want "a strong ICAC".

It's an important position for him to take after the watchdog brought down a Liberal premier, Barry O'Farrell, and then ended the political careers of a number of Baird's Liberal colleagues during its Operation Spicer investigation into the party's election fundraising.

Any perception that Baird is using his numbers in the Parliament to wreak revenge on the agency is political poison.

Yet with this bill and the insistence that the woman who oversaw Spicer, Megan Latham, be forced to reapply for a job, he has just presented Opposition Leader Luke Foley with ammunition to make that very claim - and with credibility.

Baird will deny it, but his actions give every indication that he is bowing to elements within the right wing of the Liberal Party and critics beyond who want to see the ICAC severely weakened.

Consider this: the ICAC's powers have been reviewed by two eminent jurists in former High Court judge Murray Gleeson and barrister Bruce McClintock, SC.

Their report did not recommend anything like the changes being proposed by the government in this bill.

Instead of satisfying himself with the findings of this expert panel, Baird chose to ask the Inspector of ICAC, David Levine, to conduct his own review.

Levine, of course, has been in open conflict with Latham over her agency's aborted investigation of Deputy Senior Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen.

Baird threw Levine's recommendations - including an end to public hearings - to a parliamentary committee chaired by Damien Tudehope - a Liberal MP aligned to the party's right faction, whose members suffered the most from Spicer.

To its credit - and in part due to Labor's interventions - that committee dismissed most of Levine's more extreme recommendations.

But critically, it recommended the shift to a three commissioner model. Baird then decided such a change would require the abolition of Latham's job and the need for her to reapply.

It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that, as Labor and the Greens have suggested, this is an exercise to "get Latham" and replace her with commissioners who are less willing to investigate the political class.

Baird, already damaged by his backflip on the decision to shut down the greyhound industry, now risks being known as the man who destroyed ICAC.