Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 1: This is seven AM. In deciding not to probe ROBODEBT,
Speaker 1: Australia's anti corruption body seemingly failed its first big test.
Speaker 1: But the NAC has been given a second chance to
Speaker 1: reconsider an investigation into the scheme and the six people
Speaker 1: referred to the body by a royal commission. But now
Speaker 1: it's been revealed the person had picked to make that
Speaker 1: decision has had the offer withdrawn over concerns his appointment
Speaker 1: might offend one of the very people referred for investigation. Today,
Speaker 1: senior reporter for the Saturday paper, Rick Morton on the
Speaker 1: dumping of the proposed Robodett investigator and what it means
Speaker 1: for the future of the knack. It's Monday, November eighteen.
Speaker 1: So the National Anti Coruption Commission, the NACH, in one
Speaker 1: of its first very controversial decisions, it declined to investigate
Speaker 1: referrals from the Robodet Royal Commission. It was heavily criticized
Speaker 1: for that decision and it's now reconsidering. So tell me
Speaker 1: what that looks like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad you said that they declined to investigate
Speaker 2: because they didn't They didn't do any investigation and it
Speaker 2: took them eleven months to do no investigation. Essentially, there
Speaker 2: were so many complaints made about that decision that the
Speaker 2: fully independent Office of the Inspector of the NAC, staffed
Speaker 2: by Galphin SSC is also the Inspector of the New
Speaker 2: South Wales EYEKAK, launched an investigation of the back of
Speaker 2: those complaints and found that the Commissioner of the NAC,
Speaker 2: Paul Preriton, who had declared internally four times that he
Speaker 2: had a conflict of interest with Person number one who
Speaker 2: was referred through Robodet, but never actually fully recused himself
Speaker 2: from the decision making process. Paul Brereton had engaged in
Speaker 2: offers of misconduct as it's defined under the KNACK Act
Speaker 2: and that they should revisit the decision, and the KNACK
Speaker 2: of course saw the riding of the wall and had
Speaker 2: already agreed through submissions to the Inspector that yes, they
Speaker 2: would do that and because of the way this has
Speaker 2: kind of been handled so far, they would seek to
Speaker 2: appoint an independent eminent person to actually revisit that decision,
Speaker 2: so someone who's not currently at the KNACK would be
Speaker 2: brought in to relook at that initial decision of whether
Speaker 2: or not to investigate one, two, three, or all six
Speaker 2: of the Robete referrals. And what we're now learning is
Speaker 2: that that position was actually offered to the former Solicitor General,
Speaker 2: Justin Gleeson, and then it was abruptly rescinded.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So Justin Gleeson, former Solicitor General, was offered
Speaker 1: this role as this independent eminent person to revisit the
Speaker 1: issue of whether these six people referred to the Knack
Speaker 1: over possible wrongdoing during the Robotut scandal should be investigated.
Speaker 1: But you're saying you've discovered that before he was even appointed,
Speaker 1: the idea was walked back.
Speaker 2: So why Yeah, that's a very good question. And there's
Speaker 2: two different versions of this from people I've spoken to
Speaker 2: within the Knack. One of them is that it was
Speaker 2: just a simple conflict of interesting even though Justin Clison
Speaker 2: had no conflicts with any of the six people referred directly,
Speaker 2: one of the six people, a former Coalition minister, had
Speaker 2: spoken publicly about Justin Gleeson during his time as a
Speaker 2: Solicitor General, and that gave rise to the need for
Speaker 2: them to be beyond reproach and that they couldn't go
Speaker 2: ahead with it. Now, why that wasn't sorted out before
Speaker 2: it got to almost appointing him properly is a really
Speaker 2: good question. But the other version of this, and it
Speaker 2: is not without precedent within the Knack, was that they
Speaker 2: had actually countenanced the idea that this former minister would
Speaker 2: complain and that they were worried about the views of
Speaker 2: this former minister once or if they announced Justin Gleeson
Speaker 2: as the eminent person to revisit the decision, and that
Speaker 2: was actually a huge factor in the decision making to
Speaker 2: pull the job off them.
Speaker 1: Right, So should concerns of a complaint be enough to
Speaker 1: stop an appointment like this?
Speaker 3: Rick?
Speaker 2: No, No, shouldn't. I mean, if you listen to Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Watson s See and other eminent kind of legal minds,
Speaker 2: you know, decisions of corruption agency around the country are
Speaker 2: always challenged and there will be for good or ill.
Speaker 3: He says, every single step you take is going to
Speaker 3: be challenged for good or for real purposes by some
Speaker 3: of the people who are the subject of allegations of corruption.
Speaker 3: That's the way it pans out.
Speaker 2: So you know the fact that people might litigate or
Speaker 2: have complaints. It's not in and of itself a sufficient
Speaker 2: reason to not go ahead with something. In fact, you're
Speaker 2: the Corruption Commission, you should do what you think is
Speaker 2: right and just in the circumstances.
Speaker 1: And can we talk a bit more about the decision
Speaker 1: making here? Do we know how or who made the
Speaker 1: call that Gleeson should not be appointed to that role?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I don't know the complete answer about it.
Speaker 2: They won't go into any detail, of course about who
Speaker 2: said what and when and where or why. But I
Speaker 2: did manage to speak to a number of people within
Speaker 2: the Knack and within the government who said that a
Speaker 2: lot of research went into the potential engagement of the
Speaker 2: former solicit of General Justin Gleeson. And so you know,
Speaker 2: we now have questions about did Breton approach Gleeson? If
Speaker 2: he did, why did he back off? Or if it
Speaker 2: wasn't Bretherton's idea, whose was it and who raised the
Speaker 2: issues internally about the coalition minister and Justin Gleeson. And
Speaker 2: we don't know the answers to that yet now. Of course,
Speaker 2: even though there's all these questions going around, I did
Speaker 2: ask the NA you know, did you consult with any
Speaker 2: of the people about this appointment or any particular appointment,
Speaker 2: and they said the KNACK has not consulted and has
Speaker 2: no intention to consult with any referred persons about whether
Speaker 2: they have a view on the appropriateness of the independent Eminent.
Speaker 1: Person and Rick, all of this does seem to have
Speaker 1: happened at the very last minute, which begs the question
Speaker 1: that if Justin Gleeson is not the right person for
Speaker 1: this job for any reason, why was that not discovered sooner?
Speaker 1: And what does that failure say to you about what's
Speaker 1: going on inside the KNACK and its processes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not good, and I don't say that off
Speaker 2: one or two examples. In fact, we just had the
Speaker 2: inspectors and your report table where there were other deficiencies
Speaker 2: noted in the knacks handling of corruption referrals. Their IT
Speaker 2: systems are not mature. I mean, there are new agencies,
Speaker 2: so they are always going to be teething issues. But
Speaker 2: some of these decisions relate to the judgment of the
Speaker 2: Commissioner and the deputy commissioners. So we've got some issues
Speaker 2: with the way they handle stuff. There doesn't appear to
Speaker 2: be a coherent sense of how they go about their work.
Speaker 2: And having spoken to people now who have worked within
Speaker 2: the Knack who are still within the knack. There is
Speaker 2: a real sense that they're kind of making some of
Speaker 2: these things up on the fly, and in doing so
Speaker 2: trusting their own discretion and their own kind of eminence.
Speaker 2: As in Grotran's case, it's a former judge, but not
Speaker 2: realizing or not giving full credit to the idea that
Speaker 2: they might actually make mistakes as they go. And we're
Speaker 2: seeing that now come out, not just in the decisions
Speaker 2: they've been making, but in terms of this hiring process,
Speaker 2: which was so far advanced from what I can tell,
Speaker 2: and which almost made it to the end. And then
Speaker 2: suddenly something's changed, and someone's got cold feet somewhere, and
Speaker 2: Gleason's being told see you later.
Speaker 1: So can faith in the Knack be restored? That's after
Speaker 1: the break Rick, We're in a situation now where the
Speaker 1: KNAK is appointing an outside expert to revisit a decision
Speaker 1: made by the Commission. We don't know who that person's
Speaker 1: going to be now, and there are are serious questions
Speaker 1: around the process there. But the fact that this is
Speaker 1: happening at all, what does that say to you about
Speaker 1: the viability of the NAC's leadership.
Speaker 2: There has been a lot of external commentary right, including
Speaker 2: from the inspector, but also other eminent appeals court judges.
Speaker 2: Margaret White, former appeals court judge in Queensland, who is
Speaker 2: you know they've kind of build the cat on this
Speaker 2: and said, it doesn't seem like Breton fully understands the
Speaker 2: function of his own commission.
Speaker 4: They seem to misconceive their role with the greatest of respect.
Speaker 4: They seem to think that because they couldn't provide some
Speaker 4: kind of compensation or remedy to those who who were
Speaker 4: injured by this huge breach of public trust, therefore there
Speaker 4: was no point in taking it up.
Speaker 2: Someone I was speaking to you from the NAC were like,
Speaker 2: he suffers from having been a judge in that he
Speaker 2: thinks that, you know, there is an appeals court above
Speaker 2: him that will overturn any mistakes they make, but there isn't.
Speaker 2: The fact that the Inspector received so many complaints was
Speaker 2: lucky that their role was triggered. It was also lucky
Speaker 2: that they figured that the public interest was high enough
Speaker 2: that their report was published into what they found about
Speaker 2: Commissioner Puritan's handling of this matter, Because had that not
Speaker 2: been the case, it's only in very specific circumstances where
Speaker 2: any of this would have been public knowledge. And of
Speaker 2: course I get the sense that a lot of the
Speaker 2: internal discussions that we had about what to do with Robodet,
Speaker 2: the Commissioner didn't think would ever see the light of DACK.
Speaker 2: So that's been pretty out of statements, and it's only
Speaker 2: a new practice, but they appear to be quite sensitive
Speaker 2: and defensive of public commentary, some of it on social media,
Speaker 2: but most of it in the media about things that
Speaker 2: people have been saying about the knack. One of the
Speaker 2: misinformation bits they seek to correct is that he had
Speaker 2: a conflict of interest with someone and they were very
Speaker 2: close personal friends. Now Breton, again not for the first time,
Speaker 2: corrects the record by saying they had a prior professional
Speaker 2: relationship and they were not close. Now, that in itself
Speaker 2: has been debunked by former Federal court judge Allen Robinson. Now,
Speaker 2: Alan Robinson said that whatever Paul Bretherton is saying now
Speaker 2: to the inspector and now publicly about his relationship with
Speaker 2: person number one is gloss. That was the word he used.
Speaker 2: It's gloss because the way he declared it internally before,
Speaker 2: mind you, before he thought anyone was going to see
Speaker 2: these words, was that he had a close association with
Speaker 2: person number one, and on another occasion he said, this
Speaker 2: person is well known to me. I believe as we speak,
Speaker 2: Paul Brereton is talking about public trust in government at
Speaker 2: a conference. Well, this is public trust, and this is
Speaker 2: how you get rid of it, step by step, bit
Speaker 2: by bit, erosion by erosion.
Speaker 1: And the very reason that the KNAC was set up
Speaker 1: was to counter this suspicion that the people that voters
Speaker 1: had that there is or was corruption in public life.
Speaker 1: So if the KNACK fails to address that, then we
Speaker 1: lose more than just a bureaucratic body, don't we We
Speaker 1: lose more faith, more trust in public life.
Speaker 2: Well, we had one shot at this, right, We had
Speaker 2: a shot to bring about a National Anti Corruption Commission.
Speaker 2: You know, key considerations were warded down in the making
Speaker 2: of it. You know, the people corruption experts wanted public
Speaker 2: hearings unless there were really good reasons not to. But
Speaker 2: we didn't get that. The people we appointed to lead
Speaker 2: it had to be to use their own term in
Speaker 2: how they dismissed Justin Gledson. Beyond reproach, the standards have
Speaker 2: to be the highest for the agency that enforces standards,
Speaker 2: whoever they appoint as the independent person, and they might
Speaker 2: be another equally good candidate, that person who is only
Speaker 2: making a decision about whether the KNACH should investigate or not.
Speaker 2: Now they might come to the same conclusion, which case
Speaker 2: the process ends there nothing happens. But if they recommend
Speaker 2: an investigation, then the NAC has to do that investigation
Speaker 2: the same people who do they delegate it to. Now
Speaker 2: the Commissioner still presumably has to be recused. So who
Speaker 2: the KNACK does the investigation, who signs off on any
Speaker 2: of this? As someone I think joking you said on Twitter,
Speaker 2: we're going to need a parallel KNACK set up just
Speaker 2: for the robotet stuff. And of course then you get
Speaker 2: turtles all the way down because already in this case,
Speaker 2: we've had the KNACK making decision that the inspector then
Speaker 2: called into question by hiring a former federal court judge
Speaker 2: to back up the legal argument she was making. And
Speaker 2: then they referred this back to the NAC, who said, well,
Speaker 2: we will get an independent person to remake the decision.
Speaker 2: And it's like having a highway upgrade all the way
Speaker 2: to the end of the city, and there's just a
Speaker 2: one laid road. There's a bottleneck at the end. In
Speaker 2: the bottleneck, it's the same commission as the same Knack,
Speaker 2: revisiting the same issue that they have comprehensively failed on.
Speaker 1: It's a dispiriting state of affairs.
Speaker 2: Rick, Do I do anything else?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, bea Dan.
Speaker 2: Thanks Ruby, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, the Prime Minister Anthony Alberesi
Speaker 1: has backed Kevin Rudd to remain as Australia's ambassador to Washington.
Speaker 1: There's been speculation that Trump could demand Rudd's withdrawal after
Speaker 1: disparaging remarks that Rudd made about the President elect in
Speaker 1: the past resurfaced. Speaking from the APEX summit in Peru,
Speaker 1: Alberzi described his first ten minute phone conversation with Trump
Speaker 1: as very constructive and positive, and said that Kevin Rudd
Speaker 1: was not mentioned. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has nominated oil and
Speaker 1: gas industry executive Chris Wright, a staunch defender of fossil
Speaker 1: fuel use, as his pick to lead the US Department
Speaker 1: of Energy. Chris Wright is the founder and chief executive
Speaker 1: of Liberty Energy, an oil filled services firm based in Denver, Colorado.
Speaker 1: He's previously called climate change activists alarmist, and has likened
Speaker 1: efforts by democrats to combat global warming to Soviet style communism.
Speaker 1: I'm Ribby Jones. See tomorrow