- by Anna Pha
- The Guardian
- Issue #2124
Photo: goodfon.com
When Labor’s new National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) decided not to inquire into the referral of six public figures from the Robodebt Royal Commission, the victims, their families and the wider community were stunned. This was Labor’s national integrity body dismissing one of the worst corruption scandals of all time that had devastated thousands of people with illegal ‘debts’ and financial ruin.
The NACC claimed it “would not be in the public interest” and would not be of any material benefit to the victims of Robodebt to investigate them. Really?
Robodebt was an illegal, computerised social security system that averaged incomes over a year, when they should have been considered fortnight by fortnight according to when people had or hadn’t worked. This produced false debts and resulted in social security recipients being hounded by private debt collectors for money they did not have and did not owe. These ‘debts’ often ran into thousands of dollars and there was no limit on how far back the computer could go in pursuit of its innocent victims.
This resulted in considerable pain and stress for tens of thousands of the most vulnerable people, including 3 known suicides. Complaints about it were ignored, even when its illegality was known to those running the scheme and Coalition politicians who defended it.
It took a massive campaign before the Labor government agreed to establish a Royal Commission into the scheme in 2022, following the defeat of the Coalition. The Royal Commission found that Robodebt was illegal.
The Robodebt Royal Commission (RRC) found that “Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.”
The RCC referred six public officials to the NACC for official investigation. The names of these people are in a sealed chapter of its final report. Five people have been given access to the sealed section. One is the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who is reportedly considering its release.
As far back as December 2014, Department of Social Security lawyers had given internal advice that fortnightly incomes could not be based on averaging an annual income.
So far, no one has been held to account let alone punished for their role in the scheme – neither public servant nor politician.
INVESTIGATING THE INVESTIGATOR
The Act establishing the NACC also provides for an independent Inspector of the NACC to oversee its operations and conduct. Gail Furness SC was appointed as the first inspector last year.
She has raised questions about the chair of the NACC and how the Commission reached its decision not to investigate the six referred to it. She did not review the decision itself but looked at whether or not it was influenced by the Chair, Paul Brereton’s potential conflict of interest. Brereton had a long-standing professional relationship with one of the six.
She drew the conclusion that Brereton had failed to “manage” his conflict of interest. His “involvement in the decision-making was comprehensive, before, during and after the 19 October meeting,” when the decision was made. He had declared a conflict, but had not removed himself from the process.
In June 2024, Furness announced that she was launching an investigation into the NACC after receiving almost 900 complaints within a week of the NACC’s Robodebt decision. This later rose to 1200.
Furness found that Brereton had engaged in “officer misconduct,” a technical term which does not necessarily mean illegality. She also recommended that Brereton appoint an appropriate person to reconsider the NACC’s decision not to investigate the six.
Furness also asked ex-Federal Court Judge Alan Robertson to inquire into the NACC’s decision-making that led to the refusal to investigate the Robodebt six.
“It gets worse: as Furness’ report discloses that before the NACC made public its Robodebt decision, it circulated its draft media release to the lawyers acting for the Robodebt Six, so they could vet its wording. Which they did, requesting changes that watered it down, which the NACC accepted,” writes lawyer Michael Bradley in Crikey.
“Yes, you read that right: the people the NACC was supposed to investigate over alleged corrupt conduct were allowed to help redraft the wording of the decision that let them off the hook.” Bradley went on to describe the NACC as “the ship that torpedoed itself.”
“Yet, since making its decision not to investigate, it has become the subject of a corruption inquiry itself into how it made the decision.”
Furness in her report on 30 October recommended that Brereton appoint an “appropriate person” to reconsider the Robodebt decision. The NACC agreed and then announced it would revisit its decision.
SET UP TO FAIL
The NACC was only established under considerable pressure to set up a body to investigate corruption in the public sector. Labor, true to form, appeared to establish such a body but in reality set up a paper tiger.
This particular paper tiger is completely opaque. NACC inquiries are held in secret, the names of those being investigated cannot revealed except under “exceptional circumstances.”
The NACC has spent more than $100 million so far, and has had more than 3,000 referrals since June. As with Robodebt, no findings of corruption have been found.
Corruption under the Act includes breach of public trust, abuse of their office as a public official, misuse of information gained as a public official or adversely affecting a public official’s honest or impartial exercise of official duties.
When the Royal Commissioner, Catherine Holmes, provided the confidential chapter to just five people in July last year, she issued a simultaneous non-publication order preventing its disclosure to any person other than official investigating agencies or by people referred for possible prosecution.
The penalty for any person who makes any publication in contravention of such a direction for non-publication is a fine of no more than 20 ‘penalty units’ or imprisonment for a period not exceeding 12 months (a penalty unit is currently $330).
Labor should repeal those provisions and open the sealed chapter to the public.
The Coalition ministers and collaborating public servants should face justice for knowingly operating an illegal scheme, such a cruel and devastating scheme that ruined the lives of thousands of the most vulnerable people.
As for the NACC, it should be abolished, and new legislation presented to Parliament for a genuine integrity body that operates independently, with transparency and has teeth.
