Speaker 1: Do you accept responsibility for not telling your chief executive
Speaker 1: officer that you've done ten hours of work for defense
Speaker 1: during work hours with the NAG. Do you accept responsibility
Speaker 1: for not telling your chief executive officer about the fact
Speaker 1: that you had that ongoing role and you were doing
Speaker 1: the ongoing work for defense because you didn't tell him
Speaker 1: either of those things, did you No? Do you accept
Speaker 1: responsibility for that?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: Paul Brereton, the outgoing head of Australia's National Anti Corruption Commission,
Speaker 3: was grilled at Senate Estimates this week. Breton led the
Speaker 3: body tasked with investigating serious corruption in the Commonwealth public sector,
Speaker 3: but his time as its first Commissioner has ended in
Speaker 3: a crisis of confidence over Robodet, his ongoing Defense links,
Speaker 3: and whether the watchdog properly managed conflicts of interest inside
Speaker 3: its own walls.
Speaker 4: What lessons arise for the KNACK from this Robodet controversy.
Speaker 4: The lesson from that was that on obviously would have
Speaker 4: been better had I had nothing to do with that
Speaker 4: matter at all.
Speaker 3: From the outset, Breton says he's become a distraction from
Speaker 3: the Commission's work, but his resignation begs the question, do
Speaker 3: the next problems end with him. I'm will eat Ali.
Speaker 3: You're listening to seven AM today Independent journalist Nick Fike
Speaker 3: on how Australia's anti corruption watchdog ended up in crisis
Speaker 3: and whether it can recover. It's Friday, May twenty ninth.
Speaker 5: Nick.
Speaker 3: That was quite a showdown I think you can say,
Speaker 3: between Paul Breton and some senators in the Senate Estimates inquiry.
Speaker 3: But before that, I want to go back to twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen with the Brereton Inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan,
Speaker 3: because that's into involved, isn't.
Speaker 2: It It is it's the start of a long story.
Speaker 5: So the Commissioner of the NAC is Paul Brereton, and
Speaker 5: he was also conducting the Afghanistan War Crimes Inquiry started
Speaker 5: in twenty sixteen, ran to twenty twenty. That was for
Speaker 5: the Inspector General of the ADF. He produced the Brereton Report.
Speaker 5: He was also a major general in the Army Reserve.
Speaker 5: He went on, obviously to be appointed as the inaugural
Speaker 5: Commissioner of the NAC and that relationship, his relationship with
Speaker 5: the ADF was the foundation of a series of conflicts,
Speaker 5: and he had a professional association with some of the
Speaker 5: subjects that he was investigating at the NAC. But it
Speaker 5: turns out that it was not just an affiliation. He
Speaker 5: was doing ongoing consulting work with the Inspector General's Office,
Speaker 5: and he also had a close association. In fact, occasionally
Speaker 5: he was termed a personal association with Katherine Campbell, who
Speaker 5: was the subject of the Robodet inquiry. She was one
Speaker 5: of the sixth who was referred to the KNACK over
Speaker 5: robo debt. So in multiple ways the Commissioner of the
Speaker 5: KNACK was conflicted, or there was a perceived conflict or
Speaker 5: the potential for a conflict in terms of his previous
Speaker 5: roles and his current role. That's been the basis of
Speaker 5: so much controversy and I think is at the heart
Speaker 5: of his resignation this week.
Speaker 3: So tell us about what we saw on Tuesday night
Speaker 3: in Senate estimates.
Speaker 5: So the background is that a few weeks ago, the
Speaker 5: Green Senator David Chubridge moved a successful Senate motion he
Speaker 5: directed Brereton and the three other the KNACK deputy commissioners
Speaker 5: to attend budget essenates this week to give evidence and
Speaker 5: to answer questions. On Monday, though, Breton announced his resignation,
Speaker 5: taking effect on six July. There's still speculation as to
Speaker 5: why he resigned, but the pressure was rising on a
Speaker 5: number of fronts, some of which we've discussed, and Breton
Speaker 5: had earlier told Parliament the Knack had also said that
Speaker 5: he'd resigned his position before becoming the NAC Commision, but
Speaker 5: this wasn't true, as we've discussed, he was still commissioning.
Speaker 5: And we know that Breton was currently under an investigation
Speaker 5: by the oversight Gail Furness. She's the KNACK Inspector, a
Speaker 5: kind of oversight role that she has. She had an
Speaker 5: investigation running into his defense ties and that was what
Speaker 5: primarily was the basis of a series of quite testing
Speaker 5: questions between Breton and David Shubridge and Senator Pocock also.
Speaker 6: Commissioner, can you surely not see that Australians who watch
Speaker 6: this the commissioner of our highest integrity body, and your
Speaker 6: inability to take any responsibility at any turn to throw
Speaker 6: the CEO under the bus to just conseque me not?
Speaker 2: When did I be willing to well?
Speaker 6: Earlier you said he has absolutely no right to know
Speaker 6: what you're doing in terms of the IGADF.
Speaker 4: I see the CEO, I said it was relevant for
Speaker 4: the other statutory officers to know that I had an
Speaker 4: ongoing affiliation with the IGADF, which they knew, which you didn't.
Speaker 3: Was there anything that stood out to you from those exchanges?
Speaker 5: So, after having heard from the Attorney General's Office, having
Speaker 5: heard from the NAC Commissioner, the KNACK Deputy Commissioners, the
Speaker 5: KNACK Inspector herself turns up Gail Furness and she reveals,
Speaker 5: in something of a bombshell, that she's undertaken another investigation.
Speaker 7: So I received a complaint, I had the commissioner's response,
Speaker 7: I commenced an investigation.
Speaker 5: This is a third investigation into a complaint about Brereton's conduct.
Speaker 5: We just sat through an hour and a half of
Speaker 5: Breton and his fellow commissioners and the CEO fronting up
Speaker 5: to Senate estimates. They hadn't even mentioned this. Gail Furness
Speaker 5: gets up and the first thing she says is, oh,
Speaker 5: by the way, it only started last month.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: And are you able to recall when you first sent
Speaker 1: it to the commission for the response, Well, it.
Speaker 7: Was before the fourteenth of April.
Speaker 5: It was also revealed that the second investigation that she'd
Speaker 5: been looking into it had been going back and forth
Speaker 5: between her and Commissioner of Breton's office that he'd run
Speaker 5: up two hundred and four thousand dollars in legal fees
Speaker 5: paid by the taxpayer to defend himself from whatever her
Speaker 5: findings are, which we don't know yet.
Speaker 3: Okay, So three investigations is quite a lot to get
Speaker 3: your head around. Do we know much about them? Can
Speaker 3: we separate what the three are about and whether or
Speaker 3: not they're related.
Speaker 5: So the first one we already know about, that was
Speaker 5: the officer misconduct finding that was in relation to the
Speaker 5: Robodette findings.
Speaker 2: The second one is ongoing.
Speaker 5: It's into Breton's defense tires, the things we've been talking about,
Speaker 5: how he handled or mishandled them. We don't know her conclusions.
Speaker 5: The third one we literally don't know. We just learned
Speaker 5: about it last night. It was only mentioned in the
Speaker 5: context of a complaint about Breton's conduct.
Speaker 1: Can you identify did it relate to the commissioner in
Speaker 1: any way?
Speaker 7: As I've said, I commenced a complaint investigation into a
Speaker 7: complaint i'd received about the conduct of the commissioner.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about this concept of a conflict of
Speaker 3: interest here, if Brereton is connected with the ADF in
Speaker 3: some kind of formal way, and there have been photos
Speaker 3: circulating of him wearing army fatigues, for example, while he
Speaker 3: was Commissioner, the conflict of interest there is what that
Speaker 3: there might be some kind of corruption allegation that emerges
Speaker 3: from the Defense Force itself, and that, if so, how
Speaker 3: big a deal would that be? Could he not just
Speaker 3: recuse himself, for example, for those sorts of referrals.
Speaker 5: So the problem is a perception one. Primarily, it's that,
Speaker 5: as you said, he appears in uniform, that he has
Speaker 5: ongoing work with defense personnel defense referrals, of which there
Speaker 5: have been many, we believe over one hundred to the NAC.
Speaker 5: Defense is potentially the NAC's biggest customer. Allegations that have
Speaker 5: been made in relation to defense material, defense acquisitions, defense
Speaker 5: matters generally, we're talking about billion dollar contracts here. Now
Speaker 5: we have the head of the Knack who has since
Speaker 5: finally has recused himself from those referrals. He's recused himself
Speaker 5: after having presided over them for two years. For more
Speaker 5: than two years, the question to me now is what
Speaker 5: happens to all of those investigations that he presided over
Speaker 5: for two and a half years. Do they get revisited
Speaker 5: who do they get revisited by? Are they situations that
Speaker 5: were influenced by Brereton? Of course they would have been
Speaker 5: here was the head of the commission. So we have
Speaker 5: a genuine, deep seated problem here.
Speaker 3: Does this take us in the direction of wondering why
Speaker 3: Brereton was appointed commissioner in the first place. Nothing to
Speaker 3: do with his ability, but just because of the situation
Speaker 3: that he was inevitably in.
Speaker 5: I think there are serious problems about his original appointment,
Speaker 5: and I don't think they've been adequately discussed. I know
Speaker 5: that several integrity experts in the legal field, for example
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Watson SC they believe that the Commissioner of the
Speaker 5: KNACK should never have been a defense figure. The military
Speaker 5: is a hierarchical organization. It's generally secretive. They don't deal
Speaker 5: well with transparency and accountability issues as a culture, and
Speaker 5: I think the method of appointing all of the commissioners
Speaker 5: and deputy commissioners in the first instance was problematic. The
Speaker 5: KNAC had the run of the field when they opened
Speaker 5: this organization. It was a brand new integrity organization. They
Speaker 5: could have had former judges, they could have had scs.
Speaker 5: They ended up with the least qualified combination of deputies
Speaker 5: permitted under the Act.
Speaker 2: It was almost like it was built to.
Speaker 3: Fail coming up. Does Breton's resignation actually fix the knack?
Speaker 3: You've identified the conflict of interest as a major issue
Speaker 3: and the way that appointments have been made to the knack.
Speaker 3: Does Breton's departure change any of that or fix any
Speaker 3: of those concerns.
Speaker 5: I think potentially a lot will be changed by his departure.
Speaker 5: I think some of it depends on who they appoint next.
Speaker 5: So I think the alber EASi government is a poor
Speaker 5: track record when it comes to appointing commissioners. They need
Speaker 5: to appoint someone who is top draw, completely unimpeachable, has
Speaker 5: the best possible qualifications.
Speaker 2: They need a transparent, rigorous process.
Speaker 5: They'll need someone that the legal community gets behind, that
Speaker 5: transparency experts get behind. Because Breton's left a serious mess
Speaker 5: at the knack. It's not just the conflicts. This is
Speaker 5: an organization with a serious deficit of public trust. There's
Speaker 5: the pile of defense investigations. There's only two deputy commissioners remaining.
Speaker 5: They have a track record of precisely zero major corruption
Speaker 5: findings from seven thousand referrals. With a staff of over
Speaker 5: two hundred people. They've never made a major corruption finding.
Speaker 3: Perhaps we should celebrate the fact we live in such
Speaker 3: a corruption free country, Nick, mean, that's another way to
Speaker 3: look at us.
Speaker 2: Oh, isn't it? Isn't it great? Wally?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can barely laugh about it at this point.
Speaker 3: That you've mentioned some concerns with the appointments of commissioners
Speaker 3: in the way which is done. I suppose that raises
Speaker 3: the question of the design of the KNACK at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the whole process. Do you see design flaws
Speaker 3: here that would need government or legislative intervention?
Speaker 2: Not that many.
Speaker 5: Actually, the main problem I think was the lack of
Speaker 5: public hearings.
Speaker 2: The KNACK hasn't had any public hearings.
Speaker 5: It's only obliged to have them in exceptional circumstance. Apparently
Speaker 5: we have never come across an exceptional circumstance that requires a.
Speaker 2: Public head hearing.
Speaker 5: Yet otherwise to me, it's actually it was an issue
Speaker 5: of personnel and approach, I think, apart from the lack
Speaker 5: of public hearings, I don't think the problem was a
Speaker 5: legislative one.
Speaker 3: Well, you mentioned the privacy and secrecy element of it,
Speaker 3: as I recall, the argument for that was that the
Speaker 3: problem with public inquiries into corruption is that the minute
Speaker 3: you are investigated, the political damage is so severe that
Speaker 3: a judgment is rendered irrespective of whether or not you
Speaker 3: get cleared, and that that would ultimately just be too
Speaker 3: damaging to public officeholders who may not have done anything corrupt,
Speaker 3: and that this would just be a totally unworkable situation.
Speaker 3: You say you think they should fix that. Do you
Speaker 3: mean making it all public or do you think there
Speaker 3: is still some room for private hearings to take place.
Speaker 5: An investigation has to jump over several hurdles to reach
Speaker 5: the level of a formal investigation. I don't think anyone
Speaker 5: is saying that all of their investigations should be secretive.
Speaker 5: I think the New South Wales IIKAK is an excellent mode.
Speaker 5: They have public hearings when they choose to, when they
Speaker 5: think it's appropriate.
Speaker 2: Most of their work is done behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: Confidentiality is absolutely obligatory for an anti coruption organization. But
Speaker 5: once you reach a certain level where you know that
Speaker 5: there is a serious corruption matter to discuss, that it's
Speaker 5: a public matter. I think there have to be public hearings.
Speaker 5: With private investigations, all you end up with is an
Speaker 5: investigation report. At the end of years of investigation, you'll
Speaker 5: get one day of headlines, maybe you'll get two days
Speaker 5: of headlines.
Speaker 2: And then it will be gone again. We don't get an.
Speaker 5: Understanding of the depth of the corruption that has been investigated,
Speaker 5: compared to, for example, a royal commission like the Robot
Speaker 5: Royal Commission. The only reason this became a public issue
Speaker 5: and became so widely known was because we watched the
Speaker 5: blow by blow in public of Catherine Holmes's Royal Commission hearings.
Speaker 2: Now we need the equivalent of that for the knack.
Speaker 3: I would say there will be people in New South
Speaker 3: Wales who argue that the problem you have with IKAK
Speaker 3: is it just swept everything up, so you end up
Speaker 3: with you barrio'farrell resigning over a bottle of grange, and
Speaker 3: that's the same situation as you know, Edio bed.
Speaker 5: I've heard that argument well lead, but I would counter
Speaker 5: by saying the New South Wales's IKAK is the most
Speaker 5: respected and admired anti corruption organization in the country that
Speaker 5: actually should be the model according to public polling and
Speaker 5: according to one integrity experts say, I mean, we keep
Speaker 5: talking about the grange bottle that comes up a lot.
Speaker 5: No one was obliging him to resign over that. That
Speaker 5: was his choice, and I think it's entirely reasonable that
Speaker 5: politicians occasionally take a fall for doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 5: Is that not a reasonable thing to expect about politicians
Speaker 5: that they have integrity standards?
Speaker 2: As in that was his choice.
Speaker 5: He wasn't obliged by the AKAK to resign because he'd
Speaker 5: received or mishandled.
Speaker 2: A bottle of grange. I think public scrutiny is really important.
Speaker 3: So you've set out some things you would like to
Speaker 3: see by the way of reform, some criticisms you've made
Speaker 3: of the way the Albanezi government has handled this. Are
Speaker 3: you optimistic at all your vision will become reality.
Speaker 5: I'm not optimistic necessarily, but we have to believe that
Speaker 5: it's possible to improve this organization. We have to fight
Speaker 5: for a proper National Anti Corruption Commission. I know that
Speaker 5: there's been talk of critics of the NAC. I know
Speaker 5: there was a defensiveness by Paul Burton. We actually believe
Speaker 5: we critics believe in the importance of a National Anti
Speaker 5: Corruption Commission.
Speaker 2: We just want it to be better. Everyone wants it
Speaker 2: to be better.
Speaker 5: So to me, it's very much a case of pessimism
Speaker 5: of the intellect, but optimism of the will.
Speaker 2: We have to believe it's possible. Nick, thanks so much,
Speaker 2: thank you.
Speaker 8: Also in the news, it's been revealed that the number
Speaker 8: of NDIS participants expected to be shifted off the scheme
Speaker 8: under new eligibility rules is considerably higher than first thought.
Speaker 8: Health Minister Mark Butler announced last month that the number
Speaker 8: of participants set to be exited or shifted from the
Speaker 8: NDIS would be at least one hundred and sixty thousand,
Speaker 8: but documents tabled in the Senate on Wednesday show the
Speaker 8: government is hoping to reduce current numbers by two hundred
Speaker 8: and forty one thousand participants by mid twenty thirty one.
Speaker 8: And the federal government is suing the manufacture of pfas
Speaker 8: or forever chemicals found in firefighting foam at twenty eight
Speaker 8: defense bases across Australia. It's seeking two billion dollars in damages,
Speaker 8: the government's largest ever legal claim. The Attorney General, Michelle Rowland,
Speaker 8: says multinational Corporation three M withheld information and misrepresented the
Speaker 8: effects and environmental risks of the foam. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 8: Thanks for listening. Seven AM will be back tomorrow