APSC's Robodebt inquiry didn't reach its conclusions lightly

The two former agency heads named in the Australian Public Service Commission’s Robodebt investigation have both strenuously rebuffed the inquiry’s findings against them.

Former Department of Human Services secretaries Kathryn Campbell and Renée Leon were found to have failed in their obligations a total of 25 times in relation to the scheme’s rollout during their tenures at the department.

They were the only two named of the 12 current and former public servants (out of 16 that were referred to the APSC for investigation) to have breached the APS Code of Conduct over the rollout of Robodebt.

The inquiry concluded that all up, the 12 had breached the code of conduct 97 times.

Ms Leon vented her disagreement with the findings through a statement on social media and found instant support from some influential people and institutions.

Ms Campbell expressed her innocence through an exclusive interview with The Australian newspaper, claiming she was a scapegoat and that the investigation was politically motivated – only to be greeted with an immediate and angry rebuff from Government Services Minister Bill Shorten.

“Ms Campbell, you are not a scapegoat; you were involved in Robodebt,” Mr Shorten said.

“There were 430,000 scapegoats – they are our fellow Australian citizens who had unlawful debt notices raised against them by the most powerful institution in Australia.

“Ms Campbell says that the attacks on her have been political. The reality is the attacks on 430,000 people using welfare were political.

“The politics wasn’t against the Coalition government; it was by the Coalition government.

“Robodebt was a shocking betrayal and failure of empathy towards vulnerable people who needed support from the government, and today and yesterday [Friday and Saturday] we’ve seen one of the key central actors in the tragedy of Robodebt, yet again, in my opinion, fail to show empathy to the victims.”

Those comments from the Minister get to the crux of it all – it’s the victims of Robodebt who matter the most here.

They were the ones who were betrayed by an over-enthusiastic and politically motivated illegal scheme that showed them no empathy at all.

That Ms Leon – who lost her job when standing up to her political masters over the scheme – has attracted high-level support and praise following the report’s release, while Ms Campbell has only attracted further condemnation, speaks volumes about integrity and attitudes.

It must be remembered, though, that the APSC taskforce undertook a thorough and lengthy investigation, gathering more evidence than is widely known and did not reach its conclusions lightly in relation to either woman.

There are no sanctions against them. The APSC cannot sanction former APS employees.

They do have marks against them; however, they must disclose them should they wish to undertake any work for the APS over the next five years.

And it is worth noting that they were the only two named because they were agency heads.

As the old proverb goes, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ (although that rule doesn’t seem to have been applied to former chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell in the government’s response to the Brereton Report into Afghanistan war crime allegations).

APS Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer has apologised to the Australian public for the government failure of Robodebt.

That was a somewhat surprising and most welcome move.

As the executive summary of the investigation’s report states: “The Parliament and the public expect accountability for the APS’s actions. Being as transparent as possible about the inquiry process and its outcomes is critical to meeting that expectation.

“The inquiries unearthed examples of public servants who acted or failed to act at critical junctures, supported by enterprise-level and more localised workplace cultures that discouraged openness, curiosity, courage and collaboration … It’s about the integrity and care taken by the public servants involved in the Robodebt Scheme, but it’s also about the integrity of the public service arrangements that are established to develop public policy and service delivery options, provide advice, and identify and correct mistakes.”

The APSC taskforce was acutely conscious of the stress being placed on all those it was investigating over Robodebt.

It rightly paid attention to their mental and emotional states.

“Throughout the course of the inquiries, the wellbeing of individuals subject to the inquiry remained a critical and continual priority,” the report states.

“This is true for any disciplinary inquiry which is, by its nature, a stressful and distressing experience for any person.

“However, these inquiries posed additional risks for individual wellbeing due to the unprecedented public scrutiny, particularly if they appeared at the Royal Commission hearings.

“Procedural fairness was afforded to each individual, with reasonable timeframes provided to respond at each stage of the process and opportunities to provide further evidence for consideration by the independent reviewers.”

It is such a marked contrast that ‘wellbeing of individuals’ and ‘procedural fairness’ and ‘reasonable timeframes’ were neither terms nor concepts applied when some very ruthless people rolled out the disgrace of Robodebt on far too many unsuspecting and vulnerable fellow Australians.