Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: When the Royal Commissioners of the Robodet scheme handed down
Speaker 1: its findings, the Commissioner went to great lengths to refer
Speaker 1: six individuals to the newly established National Anti Corruption Commission
Speaker 1: for investigation. What followed outraged many, particularly the victims of
Speaker 1: the scheme. The KNACK announced that it would not act
Speaker 1: on the referrals. The decision received so many complaints that
Speaker 1: the decision itself has been investigated. Yesterday, that investigation found
Speaker 1: not only should Robodet be revisited, but that the head
Speaker 1: of the KNACK engaged in officer misconduct. Today senior reporter
Speaker 1: for the Saturday Paper, Rick Morton on what this means
Speaker 1: for the integrity of the Australian corruption washdog. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: October thirty one. Rick. I think I know you to
Speaker 1: be or somewhat of a cool headed guy, thoughtful, rather
Speaker 1: do someone a good urn than a bad turn. But
Speaker 1: you've expressed a lot of anger at the decision from
Speaker 1: the National Anti Corruption Commission earlier this year not to
Speaker 1: investigate robodebt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm look thank you for that kind assessment. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure it's true because I feel myself growing increasingly
Speaker 2: mad about the state of the world, But that you know,
Speaker 2: I was of the opinion that they completely abdigated their
Speaker 2: responsibility into seriously assessing six referrals from the Rabadet Royal
Speaker 2: Commission relating to five public servants and one presumably minister
Speaker 2: about their role in this kind of systemic failure and
Speaker 2: to judge whether that involved corrupt conduct or not. And
Speaker 2: they just decided there was nothing to see here and
Speaker 2: they didn't want to look into it.
Speaker 1: So let's look at the decision. What did the next
Speaker 1: say exactly when they decided not of lot into.
Speaker 2: It, So they released a public statement. It's the only
Speaker 2: public statement they've made about it, not even one page long,
Speaker 2: and they essentially said that the Royal Commission already did
Speaker 2: a thorough investigation, they've fully explored the conduct involved, and
Speaker 2: said that they didn't want to create unequal outcomes if
Speaker 2: they were to come to a different opinion based on whether,
Speaker 2: you know, corupt conduct was found, and also that there'd
Speaker 2: be no value, no public interests value in the National
Speaker 2: Anti Corruption Commission making an adjudication of whether there was
Speaker 2: corrupt conduct. And by the way, let's just refer everything
Speaker 2: to is Train and Public Service Commission, which is doing
Speaker 2: an investigation, and they've got sanctions they can apply and
Speaker 2: you know, they'll look into it. Now we now know
Speaker 2: that that public statement was misleading and has been judged
Speaker 2: as such by the Independent Inspector of the KNACK. So
Speaker 2: essentially they were saying we don't have a role to play, which.
Speaker 1: Caught many people out by surprise because people thought the
Speaker 1: KNACK was set up to explore this exact type of thing.
Speaker 2: It's right there in the legislation. There are you know,
Speaker 2: there are four levels of conduct that can attract a
Speaker 2: term of corruption, including you know, breach of public trust.
Speaker 2: And of course this was the very first decision they
Speaker 2: made in public, and they had it handed to them
Speaker 2: on a platter, and they sat on it eleven months.
Speaker 2: They sat on it, and then they came up with
Speaker 2: this suggestion that not only are they not investigating, they've
Speaker 2: done an assessment, but there's no investigation. And also, you know,
Speaker 2: they say, apart from saying that someone acted corruptly, there's
Speaker 2: not anything we can do, which is precisely their raison deetra.
Speaker 2: That's why they exist.
Speaker 1: And so now there's been an investigation into that decision
Speaker 1: not to pursue robodebt by the Knack. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me what the investigation into that decision found.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we finally, you know here in July this
Speaker 2: year from the Knack and they put out their statements
Speaker 2: saying nothing to see here. There were eventually nine hundred,
Speaker 2: at least nine hundred individual complaints from members of the
Speaker 2: public to an office called the Inspector of the National
Speaker 2: Anti Corruption Commission, which is held by Galpiness sc who
Speaker 2: is also the Inspector of the New South Wales Independent
Speaker 2: Commission against Corruption. It is the only body outside of
Speaker 2: a parliamentary committee that oversees appointments to the KNACK and
Speaker 2: ken in its own conception, investigate issues of corruption or
Speaker 2: misconduct as they were carried out by officers of the
Speaker 2: NAC and so it's the watchdog of the watchdog essentially.
Speaker 2: And Galpiness decided to open an investigation because there was
Speaker 2: sufficient merit to looking at whether the Commissioner of the KNACK,
Speaker 2: former Court Justice Paul Brereton, should have removed himself from
Speaker 2: all decision making in relation to a conflict of interests
Speaker 2: that he had declared in relation to a person we'll
Speaker 2: call referred Person number one, a public servant who mister Breton,
Speaker 2: Commissioner Breton has variously told Galpiness he knew well, they
Speaker 2: had a close involvement, they were well known.
Speaker 1: To each other.
Speaker 2: It's a position that he is attempted to walk back
Speaker 2: from publicly by saying, you know, this wasn't a close
Speaker 2: personal relationship, it was someone he knew in a form
Speaker 2: of professional life. That statement, in and of itself was
Speaker 2: roundly rejected by another former Federal Court judge, Alec Robertson,
Speaker 2: sc who was engaged by Galfiness to kind of a
Speaker 2: parallel investigation that she could rely on in her investigation
Speaker 2: of the NAC Are you following and so Alan Robinson
Speaker 2: said that Commissioner Barriton was glossing over the fact that
Speaker 2: he knew Referred Person number one well, and that it
Speaker 2: wasn't enough to say that it was a former professional relationship,
Speaker 2: because that's not what he told Galpiness. And so what
Speaker 2: we're see now is the outcome of that investigation and
Speaker 2: whether Commissioner Rariton did more than he should have and
Speaker 2: evolve himself more than he should have in the decision
Speaker 2: to not do anything about the six people referred by
Speaker 2: the Robbet Oral Commission.
Speaker 1: After the break, can the corruption watch dog repair it's
Speaker 1: already tarnished image. So this investigation into NAC's decision not
Speaker 1: to follow up on referrals from the Robodebt Royal Commission,
Speaker 1: it's recommended that that decision be revisited. Do we know
Speaker 1: what happens from here?
Speaker 2: I mean they have to now engage an independent, eminent,
Speaker 2: independent person. Of course, the NAC gets to choose who
Speaker 2: that person is to re examine the referrals. We know
Speaker 2: that they had in legal advice which certainly seemed to
Speaker 2: agree that there were corruption issues and that there could
Speaker 2: be findings made, but that legal advice also went so
Speaker 2: far as to say that there were gaps in the
Speaker 2: documentary evidence that meant they were not free from doubt.
Speaker 2: So the findings made by the Raw Commission were serious
Speaker 2: and well supported in some cases, but it was easier
Speaker 2: to disprove in other cases, or at least argue. And
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why they declined to do anything
Speaker 2: the first time around is that the people who were
Speaker 2: subject to those findings, such as referred Person Number one
Speaker 2: and the other five, would likely litigate and fight every
Speaker 2: single decision along the way. They would want to re
Speaker 2: examine witnesses, they would want to cross examine make submissions,
Speaker 2: which of course is all their right, and so they
Speaker 2: should have been able to test these things. And of course,
Speaker 2: not only did they not do that, they wrote to
Speaker 2: the six people to say, we're not looking into this
Speaker 2: any further. Here's the public statement we're going to make.
Speaker 2: Do you want to say anything about it? And only
Speaker 2: one person took them up on the offer, and it
Speaker 2: was referred Person number one, the person about whom Commissioner
Speaker 2: Breton had to make a conflict of interest disclosure, and
Speaker 2: their lawyers referred Person number one's lawyers changed the language
Speaker 2: in the public statement issued by the KNACK in several
Speaker 2: quite important editorial ways. They don't like the idea that
Speaker 2: they say that the Royal Commission had fully exposed the
Speaker 2: conduct of individuals, and so that got changed to canvast,
Speaker 2: and then later it got changed to explored, and then
Speaker 2: they wanted to make some watering down changes to the
Speaker 2: language later on about beyond considering whether the conduct in
Speaker 2: question amounted to crop conduct. They essentially tried to just
Speaker 2: tamper that down and Commissioner Breton accepted those changes. The
Speaker 2: Commissioner of the National Anti Corruption Agency was giving people
Speaker 2: who they had made, we now know on a flawed
Speaker 2: assessment process, a decision to not investigate for corrupt and
Speaker 2: we have internal correspondence from the commissioner himself to the
Speaker 2: deputy commissioner saying, let's not get hung up on the
Speaker 2: corruption issue. And they're giving that to the people who
Speaker 2: are the subject of that potential investigation and allowing them
Speaker 2: to water down the language, not the facts, but the
Speaker 2: language in the public statement that is issued under the
Speaker 2: banner the imprimater of the KNACK.
Speaker 1: So what sort of powers does the KNACK have to
Speaker 1: deal with robodebt that no other body has.
Speaker 2: So the KNAC doesn't really have a role beyond finding
Speaker 2: that there is corrupt conduct. And I think there's a
Speaker 2: normative value in that of actually applying the label corrupt
Speaker 2: conduct to people who have done the wrong thing. There
Speaker 2: might not be any enduring kind of civil or criminal penalty,
Speaker 2: but that is something that you don't get to scrub
Speaker 2: for your name. And I know for a fact that
Speaker 2: it's something that the people involved in robot really do
Speaker 2: not like being reminded.
Speaker 1: Of of their role.
Speaker 2: In this and absent any other findings in any other justice,
Speaker 2: this was really the best course of action. But again,
Speaker 2: none of that is an argument for an institution whose
Speaker 2: sole remit is to investigate and assess corrupt conduct to
Speaker 2: decide that they don't feel like doing it, and particularly
Speaker 2: under such a flawed process. Whereas Garverness points out and
Speaker 2: Alan Robertson her reviewer, points out, there is a huge
Speaker 2: difference between saying I've got a conflict of interest and
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be the decision maker and saying
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be involved in any of the
Speaker 2: decision making around this. And what happened was that there
Speaker 2: is a matter of minutes in that October meeting where
Speaker 2: Berton stepped out of the room when the quote unquote
Speaker 2: decision was made. But he was involved comprehensively before, during,
Speaker 2: and after. And I think we have a serious problem
Speaker 2: when we think that the KNAK just can't do anything
Speaker 2: and therefore we shouldn't care that they abrogated their responsibility,
Speaker 2: and then why have them. We're paying a lot of
Speaker 2: money for it.
Speaker 1: So this was the first decision of the KNACK. It
Speaker 1: blew its integrity out of the water, and the mines
Speaker 1: of a lot of people. What does the decision mean
Speaker 1: for the commission moving forward? Can it regain some sort
Speaker 1: of semblance of credibility after this?
Speaker 2: I honestly don't think they can. They've talked he about
Speaker 2: their credibility and they did it, you know, almost single handedly.
Speaker 2: Mind you, they had a lot of help from what
Speaker 2: was essentially a bipartisan two party political project to create
Speaker 2: a toothless tiger. Not just toothless, but the tiger's arfter ittic.
Speaker 2: It's got osteoporosis like, it's just it's not doing well.
Speaker 2: And it's in no one's best interests if you're a
Speaker 2: politician to have a truly effective accountability body. And what
Speaker 2: we saw was, you know, the coalition and labor with
Speaker 2: decision making over who gets to be appointed to this body.
Speaker 2: I think the Coalition were given quite a lot of
Speaker 2: say in some of the commissioners. Brereton was a consensus
Speaker 2: missioner by all accounts. And the legislation that underpins the
Speaker 2: Act allows then Act to do most of its work
Speaker 2: in secrecy, which you know, certain types of lawyers and
Speaker 2: barristers and judges love because they think that the law
Speaker 2: is perfect. Of course, and quite above the hoi poloi
Speaker 2: and anyone who might you know, terrible icky journalists like myself,
Speaker 2: who might have questions of propriety, because what would we know.
Speaker 2: But of course we got lucky in this case. Breton
Speaker 2: put out a statement saying, you know, I made it
Speaker 2: an error of judgment. Judges make errors all the time.
Speaker 2: That's why we have appeal processes and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it. But what happened in this case was that
Speaker 2: he made a significant error that amounted to engage in
Speaker 2: in official misconduct. That error would have gone unchecked were
Speaker 2: it not for the public outcry and the sheer kind
Speaker 2: of public interest of the robotic case, which sparked the
Speaker 2: interest of the inspector. And then of course we are
Speaker 2: lucky that we have the inspector that we do, because
Speaker 2: you know, that could have ended up another way. And
Speaker 2: so this idea that all of these decisions behind clostors
Speaker 2: are inherently perfect is just it's clearly wrong. And it's
Speaker 2: only now by sheer half luck and half thank god
Speaker 2: it's Gaulphinair's that we're actually getting a peek behind the
Speaker 2: window of what they were talking about in making these decisions.
Speaker 2: And it's like they had no idea what they were doing.
Speaker 2: The knack is his shot.
Speaker 1: Rick, Thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Danie, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, Australia's annual inflation rate has dropped
Speaker 1: a full percent from three point eight percent mid year
Speaker 1: to two point eight percent, the lowest rate in three years.
Speaker 1: Data from the AABS also shows pressure on the economy's easing,
Speaker 1: with electricity prices falling by seventeen points three percent in
Speaker 1: the last quarter. The economists are optimistic the figures, meaning
Speaker 1: the Reserve Bank may take an interest right cut in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and Health Minister Mark Butler says he
Speaker 1: has enormous respect for the leaders who led Australia's COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen response. The comments follow an independent inquiry finding that
Speaker 1: Australia's response resulted in fewer deaths than in other countries,
Speaker 1: but it also found that the heavy handed restrictions and
Speaker 1: inconsistent responses had likely burned through the good will of
Speaker 1: Australians who may not accept such measures in a future pandemic.
Speaker 1: The minister said he didn't think leaders needed to apologize
Speaker 1: to the public, and that the newly announced Center for
Speaker 1: disease control will improve Australia's response to future outbreaks. I'm
Speaker 1: Daniel James. Seven AM will be back tomorrow