Robodebt was a massive $1.8 billion failure of public administration. Its 500,000-plus victims, and the broader public, had a right to expect that the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s consideration of the Royal Commission referrals would be beyond reproach.
Yet documents detailing NACC internal processes, which the NACC was forced to release under Freedom of Information (FoI), are damning. The documents, which question the NACC’s integrity, have been on its website for several weeks. But where is the public outrage?
On June 6, the NACC a released a two-page statement announcing it would not be pursuing the six public officials but would instead “focus on ensuring lessons learnt”.
The statement noted that ‘the conduct of the six public officials … had already been fully explored by the Robodebt Royal Commission’ and that ‘a further investigation’ was unlikely to produce ‘significant new evidence’.
However, the conduct had not been fully explored because the Royal Commission’s terms of reference did not include the power to investigate corruption.
Former NSW Supreme Court judge, Anthony Whealy KC, now chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, said the Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes did not have the jurisdiction or capacity to make findings on whether persons referred to the NACC had engaged in corrupt conduct.
Whealey said that in refusing to act on the six referrals, the NACC had ‘betrayed its core obligation and failed to fulfil its primary statutory duty’.
The NACC also said it was undesirable to conduct ‘multiple investigations’ into the ‘same matter’. The Australian Public Service Commission recently concluded its inquiry, but it could only investigate five of the six individuals. The sixth person is believed to be a politician, so has not been subjected to ‘multiple investigations’.
The Inspector of the NACC, Gail Furness, recently announced an investigation into the NACC’s refusal to consider the referrals after receiving about 900 complaints, many of which alleged corrupt conduct or maladministration by the NACC itself.
According to Jason Koutsoukis, the NACC statement revealed that the Commissioner, The Hon Paul Brereton, had recused himself. However, the statement did not use the word ‘recuse’. The statement said ‘delegate’: ‘In order to avoid any possible perception of a conflict of interest, the Commissioner delegated (my italics) the decision in this matter to a Deputy Commissioner.’
Stephen Charles AO, former Victorian Court of Appeal judge and a previous board member of the Centre for Public Integrity states: “When a judge in court proceedings recuses himself because of such a conflict, that judge does not – must not – take any further part in the proceedings; otherwise any decision by the court is likely to be stained by his involvement and set aside for the judge’s bias.”
Brereton’s response was extraordinary. He claimed that the term ‘recuse’ doesn’t mean what it does at law or in common usage, but rather, that it means only that a conflicted person is not the ultimate ‘decision maker’ in a case.
Although Brereton did not declare the exact nature of his ‘conflict of interest’, it is widely believed to be his longstanding relationship with Kathryn Campbell, the former head of the Department of Human Services, who was heavily involved in establishing and implementing the unlawful Robodebt scheme. Brereton and Campbell served together over many years as senior officers in the Australian Army Reserve.
NACC’s Integrity Policy outlines a number of strategies to ‘mitigate or manage risks’ relating to referrals of people with whom NACC employees have a close association. Two key strategies for managing such a conflict of interest include ‘limiting exposure to the relevant information’ and ‘removing the employee from related decision-making processes’. By not doing either of these things, Commissioner Brereton failed to adhere to NACC’s guidelines for managing conflicts of interest.
The NACC meeting minutes show Brereton remained present throughout the majority of a senior assessment panel meeting. According to Stephen Charles, it appeared Brereton considered he was “entitled to be present” in the NACC’s Robodebt discussions. Brereton only left the room towards the end as the decision was made.
The NACC has refused to disclose which Deputy Commissioner was delegated as the final decision making, claiming that revealing the identity of the decision maker would likely place them at risk of being targeted, and potentially subject them to abuse, harassment and threats. Quite a statement given how the victims of Robodebt were treated and the fact that Deputy Commissioners are paid more than $600,000 a year.
The extraordinary secrecy is also not something you’d expect from such highly paid staff at an independent agency tasked with exposing systemic corruption in the Commonwealth public sector.
The Inspector of the NACC, Gail Furness SC, will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The absurdity of the NACC launching an investigation into NACC provides no comfort to the victims of Robodebt. The hope that the NACC would provide a mechanism for justice and holding power to account has been dashed. It seems transparency and accountability has again left the building.