AceBusinessDesk – The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has announced it will not pursue fresh corruption investigations into six public officials involved in the Robodebt scandal.
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In a statement on Thursday afternoon, the commission revealed it had received six referrals from Robodebt royal commissioner Catherine Holmes SC after she delivered her report to the government in July last year.
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“The Commission is conscious of the impact of the Robodebt Scheme on individuals and the public, the seniority of the officials involved, and the need to ensure that any corruption issue is fully investigated,” it said.
“However, the conduct of the six public officials in connection with the Robodebt Scheme has already been fully explored by the Robodebt Royal Commission and extensively discussed in its final report.
“After close consideration of the evidence that was available to the Royal Commission, the Commission has concluded that it is unlikely it would obtain significant new evidence.”
The NACC said five of the six officials were also being investigated by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC).
“There is not value in duplicating work that has been or is being done by others, in this case with the investigatory powers of the Royal Commission, and the remedial powers of the APSC,” the commission said.
“An investigation by the Commission would not provide any individual remedy or redress for the recipients of government payments or their families who suffered due to the Robodebt Scheme.”
In revealing its decision, the NACC insisted the royal commission provided “lessons of great importance for enhancing integrity in the Commonwealth public sector and the accountability of public officials”.
“The Commission will continue through its investigation, inquiry, and corruption prevention and education functions, to address the integrity issues raised in the final report, particularly in relation to ethical decision making, to ensure that those lessons are learnt, and to hold public officials to account.”
Robodebt royal commission final report included a ‘sealed’ chapter
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No details have been released as to the identities of the six officials subject to the referrals to the NACC or the APSC.
When Ms Holmes delivered her final report into the disgraced scheme, days after the NACC came into being, she revealed there was an “additional chapter” of her findings that had not been made public and remained “sealed”.
“It recommends the referral of individuals for civil action or criminal prosecution,” she said in her letter to Governor-General David Hurley.
“I recommend that this additional chapter remain sealed and not be tabled with the rest of the report so as not to prejudice the conduct of any future civil action or criminal prosecution.”
In November the government revealed 16 former public servants were being investigated by the APSC, but the attorney-general would not comment on probes run by the NACC.
‘Incompetence and cowardice’ at the heart of robodebt
In July 2023, Ms Holmes labelled the automated debt recovery scheme as an “extraordinary saga” of “venality, incompetence and cowardice” when she released her final report into the scandal.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the sorry saga as a “gross betrayal” of the Australian people, and an example of great “human tragedy”.
The scheme unlawfully raised more than $1.7 billion in debts against more than half a million social security recipients between 2015 and 2019.
The Commonwealth settled a class action against it in the Federal Court, agreeing to a payment of $1.8 billion to the victims of the scheme.
Senior ministers and bureaucrats criticised by royal commission
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The royal commission was scathing in its criticism of a number of Coalition ministers who had responsibility for the program, as well as senior bureaucrats involved in its management.
They included former prime minister Scott Morrison, former attorney-general Christian Porter and former government services ministers Alan Tudge and Stuart Robert.
The former secretary of the Human Services Department, Kathryn Campbell, was another target of criticism during the Robodebt royal commission.
After leaving the department, she was promoted to secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade by the former Coalition government.
After the 2022 election, she took on a role as a senior adviser within Defence on the AUKUS submarine project.
In the wake of the royal commission’s final report, she was suspended from that role and resigned days later.
None of the former ministers or public servants have been named as subject to further investigation, after the royal commission’s findings.
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