“Be afraid,” warned Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus when he announced details of the Albanese government’s National Anti-Corruption Commission back in 2022. Perhaps you’ll recall the build up to this moment: how the Morrison government had promised one – widely criticised as toothless – then failed to deliver it, leaving the door open for Labor to outbid it on the issue of integrity.

In the wake of minor scandals like “sports rorts” and major ones like robo-debt, integrity had become a reasonably prominent political issue in the 2022 election, especially in the teal seats the Coalition ultimately lost. So, it makes sense that Dreyfus could sound so bold, repeating his flourish in case we missed it: “And I would want people to be afraid if they’ve engaged in corrupt activities.”

Credit: Andrew Dyson

But perhaps they’ll be less afraid now. Last week, the NACC declared that after considering the matter for nearly a year, it would not be investigating anyone in relation to robo-debt. Specifically, it would not pursue any of the six public officials the royal commission referred to it.

We can’t know who these officials are because the details are contained in a confidential chapter of the commission’s report. But we know the horrors of robo-debt all too well: how it drove people to suicide, how it was in the commission’s words “crude and cruel … neither fair nor legal”, and “made people feel like criminals” even if they had done nothing wrong.

Slightly less well known – but of tremendous relevance here –........

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