Twelve current and former public servants breached their code of conduct 97 times when designing and delivering the unlawful robodebt scheme, a report by the Australian Public Service Commission has found.
The bigger picture: Between 2015 and 2019, the botched debt recovery scheme, set up by the then Coalition government, automatically used tax office data to calculate average earnings and issue debt notices to welfare recipients.
Robodebt recovered more than $750 million from almost 400,000 people, but the automated process often failed to reflect people’s earnings accurately.
Many welfare recipients were falsely accused of owing the government money, and the scheme was linked to several people taking their own lives.
After a royal commission into the scheme handed down its recommendations in 2023, a robodebt code of conduct taskforce was established to investigate public servants associated with the scheme. Its findings were published on Friday.
Former Department of Human Services (DHS) head Kathryn Campbell and her successor Renée Leon were named in the report, but the 10 other public servants found to have breached the code were not. Campbell was found to have breached the code of conduct 12 times and Leon 13 times.
The robodebt scheme compared welfare recipients’ Centrelink records with averaged income data from the tax office, but the automated process often failed to accurately reflect people’s earnings. Source: AAP / James Ross
The report said “little regard was paid” to whether decisions about robodebt’s implementation were ethical, and the commission found “little evidence” of concern about whether its approach was correct.
The report found the DHS’ workplace culture did not foster critical discussion over the scheme, and criticism was often perceived as delaying progress towards implementing government policy.
This was because the intimidating senior leadership created a culture where employees felt they could not raise risks and issues. Some higher-ups would also deflect accountability when they had delegated large and unsustainable amounts of work to junior staff.
The report said while no one person was wholly to blame, a chain reaction of multiple individual failures led to progressive systemic problems.
The key quote: “These public servants lost their objectivity and, in all likelihood, drowned out the deafening and growing criticisms of the scheme to pursue an operational objective.” — Centralised Code of Conduct Inquiry Taskforce Final Report.
What happens next: Four people still working in the public service have been slapped with sanctions ranging from fines, demotions, and reprimands. One had their salary reduced.
There is no framework for punishing a former employee and it’s unclear how the others who have retired or resigned would be treated.
