by Victims of the illegal robo-debt program say they feel “shameful” they believed justice would be delivered after a royal commission into the scheme, suggesting “they could put this all into a Monty Python movie”.
Twelve officers, including former department heads Kathryn Campbell and Renée Leon, breached the public service’s code of conduct 97 times while engaging in botching, an Australian Public Service Commission task force found on Friday.
But Campbell and Leon will not face sanctions, as they no longer work for the public service. Campbell claimed at the weekend that she was unfairly scapegoated and defended her decisions. She accused government services minister Bill Shorten of politicizing the issue.
Related: Robot inquiry issues sanctions on four of 12 staff: why so many and what happens next
The APSC report found Campbell breached the code of conduct 12 times. It found that Campbell did not “respond sufficiently to public criticism” and that he “created and allowed a culture” that prevented criticism from being considered.
‘Justice can hardly be promised to us’
Michael Griffin received a letter from Centrelink before Christmas in 2016. It wrongly informed him that he owed $3,197, based on an illegal average income that compared tax office earnings data with social security payments he received.
Nearly eight years after receiving that letter, Griffin said there has been little accountability.
“It’s almost zero punishment, almost zero consequence, and this is hardly the justice we were promised,” he said on Sunday. “I feel so ashamed that I ever believed there would be any kind of justice.”
Public service commissioner Gordon de Brouwer said on Friday it was a “big deal” to name Campbell and Leon – who have breached the code of conduct 25 times together.
De Brouwer said the commission had no power to do anything more than require the eight former bureaucrats to reveal the results, if requested, over the next five years if they tried to return to public service. Four other officers are still employed and facing sanctions.
Griffin said naming those does not equate to findings of misconduct and accountability in any other situation.
Related: ‘Platitudes and false words’: mother of robohound victim who took her own life tells inquiry about government stone walls
Jenny Miller, the mother of Rhys Cauzzo, who lost his own life in January 2017 while facing Centrelink debts of around $17,000, said the response to the royal commission’s findings was a “slap on the wrist” to this.
The commission’s report in July 2023 labeled the scheme “crude and cruel”, “unjust and legal” and “a costly failure of public administration”.
In a sealed paragraph, the royal commissioner, Catherine Holmes, referred those involved with other bodies for civil action or criminal prosecution. The names of the people in the sealed section are still unpublished.
Apart from the APSC report, no decisions or other decisions were made by the former royal commission.
“Honestly, you know, all of this could be put into a Monty Python movie – the rate it will be,” Miller said on Sunday. “There was really no compensation and these people are just able to walk away. every one of them.”
But, Miller hopes lessons will be learned. She wants the sealed section to be published but is not sure it would achieve justice and accountability alone.
“If we don’t keep [robodebt] out there, people have short memories and forget. I believe, in the long run, we will get justice.”
Campbell at the weekend rejected the six well-founded allegations made against her by the APSC task force, describing herself as a “scapegoat”.
Campbell told The Australian that it was the responsibility of another department to determine the legality of the scheme and she relied on that advice when the first criticism was raised. She said it was up to the Ministers to stop the scheme, not her.
In a statement on Friday, Leon, who is now vice-chancellor of Charles Sturt University, said she was “disappointed” by the APSC report, noting that she was sacked as secretary for ordering the scheme to be discontinued.
“When the Ministers were delayed, I ordered that it be stopped. Two weeks later, my role as secretary was terminated by a government that did not welcome honest and fearless advice,” Leon said in his statement.
‘I am lost for words.’
Colleen Taylor, a former Centrelink compliance officer, blew the whistle internally on over-indebtedness in 2017, writing an email directly to Campbell, the then DHS secretary, warning her she was “wasted” over over-indebtedness and providing forensic data about the failures of the scheme and its impact on vulnerable Australians.
Taylor was surprised by Campbell’s comments on Saturday.
“I thought, they still don’t understand what they’ve done. They really believe there was nothing wrong with this,” she said.
“I am lost for words. Do you not have it yet? And I don’t think they do. This is blaming others – it’s very harmful.”
Taylor, who has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to public administration, opposes her attempt to properly blow the whistle.
She said much of the scheme’s harm was caused by implementation – which was within Campbell’s remit. This included the faulty use of raw ATO data to try to identify welfare debts, leading to duplication of employer data and the use of gross income.
“It wasn’t just that [income] averaging – it was the fact that you were using the raw ATO data when it’s all tainted for our purposes,” she said.
In June, the National Anti-Corruption Commission announced that it would not investigate six people referred for their role in extortion.
On Friday, the NAcc said it was “reviewing” the findings of the APSC task force and “considering” the implications.
“The APSC is allowed to refer matters to the Commission if it believes there is serious or systematic corrupt behaviour. The Commission is not aware of any such transmission,” said a spokesperson.
