The government services minister, Bill Shorten, has warned that public servants adversely named by the robodebt royal commission could face disciplinary action.
Shorten said he will await the findings of commissioner Catherine Holmes AC SC before making any moves, but that unfavourable findings will be enough for action.
“Of course an adverse finding isn’t a criminal judgment” he said.
“I think once we know if there are any adverse findings and against whom they’re made and what they say, then I think we’ll have to consider what to do with those people and I’m sure the secretary of prime minister and cabinet and the secretaries committee of the government will be working out what to do about current public servants either in existing positions or who might have moved to other positions within the public service. I won’t pre-empt that.”
The commission had been meant to hand down its report on Tuesday, but applied and received an extension and will now report back on 30 June.
While focus has been on former ministers who were involved at different times in administering or approving the scheme, the spotlight has also been turned on public servants within the department and the role they played.
The role Kathryn Campbell, the former head of the department of social services and human services before that, played has come under scrutiny. In her appearances before the royal commission, Campbell agreed there had been “significant oversight” in how some aspects were handled, but denied she had ever been in a department which sought to mislead a minister.
Campbell told the royal commission on 7 December: “I wish I had [checked the legality of the scheme] but at that stage [in 2015 when it was developed] I relied on DSS.” She said this had been “unwise”.
Campbell moved on become the head of the department of foreign affairs and was recently appointed to an Aukus advisory role, retaining her $900,000 salary package.
Shorten said part of the cultural shift within the department, which was already under way, was ensuring public servants once again gave “frank and fearless advice”.
“I think any organisation always needs to ask itself the question, ‘am I hearing the bad news I need to hear?’ Because invariably if organisations at a certain level don’t hear bad news then what they will get is worse news,” he said.
“So, I guess put in a nicer way, I’m relatively confident – I’m confident that with the current leadership in both of the areas that I’m responsible for … we are being told what we need to know, not just what they think their [ministers] wanted them to know.”
“There’s two steps to go – royal commission and then how the commonwealth public service leadership proposes to look at those people.
Shorten said the royal commission had “exposed a soullessness and hollowness in parts of the public service and ministries which shocked us. We have to make sure how it doesn’t happen again, and there should be consequences for people who did the wrong thing but I won’t name, names, we’ll wait and see what the processes emerge with.”
