A scathing report into the operation of the robodebt scheme has found a dozen current and former senior public servants breached their code of conduct. Former Agency heads Kathryn Campbell and Renee Leon have been named as two of the individuals. While their retirements mean they avoid sanctions, four others have been sanctioned.
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00:00This was an investigation of public servants around their involvement in robo-debt.
00:0816 public servants were referred to the Australian Public Service Commissioner last year for
00:12this investigation.
00:13They have come back today and said that 12 former and current public servants have been
00:19found to have breached their code on 97 occasions.
00:23Now, there have been sanctions against four of those public servants, but the others,
00:28they say, have since left or retired from the public service.
00:32Now, robo-debt, you might remember, has been described as one of the worst instances of
00:37public administration in Australia's history.
00:41$1.7 billion in debt was raised from people unlawfully, and the Commonwealth has already
00:47settled a class action for $1.8 billion to repay some of those debts.
00:52Now, the Australian Public Service Commissioner, Gordon De Bruyere, has released a statement
00:57today and he has apologised for the public service's involvement in this.
01:02Here is a little bit of what he had to say.
01:04The vast majority of public servants are good people, working hard to serve you, the community,
01:10every day.
01:12Public servants made mistakes.
01:15We can't change what happened, but we can learn from it and work together to make sure
01:20those mistakes won't happen again.
01:24And Isabel, the Commissioner has named two former public servants.
01:28Who are they?
01:29Yeah, so they've named two public servants.
01:33One is Catherine Campbell.
01:35She's a former secretary of the department, and they've said that she has found to have
01:40committed 12 breaches of the Code for things like failure to seek legal advice, failure
01:45to sufficiently respond to public criticism, and creating a culture that prevented scrutiny
01:52of robo-debt.
01:53They've also singled out another former secretary, Renee Leon.
01:58Now, she's released a statement saying that robo-debt had already been in operation for
02:03two years when she became Secretary of Human Services, the department that ran it.
02:09She said when legal doubts were raised, she sought definitive advice from the Solicitor
02:13General, and she says when ministers delayed, she directed that it be stopped, and two weeks
02:19later as Secretary, she was terminated by a government that did not welcome frank and
02:24fearless advice.
02:25So she's pushing back on that, and she is now the Vice-Chancellor of Charles Sturt University,
02:31and they've also released a statement in support of her.