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