From the outset, a question mark hovered over whether Australia’s federal National Anti-Corruption Commission would serve the purpose of shedding light on corruption in the public sector. The enacting legislation that brought it into existence, for instance, limit public hearings to “exceptional circumstances”, a reminder that transparency was going to be heavily conditioned.
Its first major decision, handed down on June 6, was not expected to be controversial. The Commission had, after all, been charged with enhancing the “integrity in the Commonwealth public sector by deterring, detecting and preventing corrupt conduct involving Commonwealth public officials”. Surely, referrals concerning six public officials identified in the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme would have been appropriate subject matter for investigation? The automated debt assessment and recovery program, had, in the words of the Royal Commission report, used “patently unreliable methodology as income averaging, without other evidence, to determine entitlement to benefit”. From its inception as a pilot program in 2015 till its conclusion in May 2020, vulnerable Australians were subjected to what could be described as a form of administrative hounding and bureaucratic terrorism.
The answer from the NACC regarding the referrals caused shock, signalling what William Partlett of the Centre for Public Integrity described as “a departure from a long history of anti-corruption oversight in Australia.” While the Commission was aware of the impact of the scheme “on individuals and........