It took the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) a year to decide to do nothing, and a few hours to realise it had a public relations disaster on its hands.
What followed was what the victims of robodebt — and every other citizen invested in the idea that we might one day see some justice emerge from the worst scandal of corrupt governance in Australia’s history — could only have read as deliberate gaslighting:
“We understand that our decision not to pursue the referrals from the robodebt royal commission will be difficult for victims, their families and friends. We encourage anyone experiencing distress to seek support.”
What the NACC’s decision-makers clearly didn’t understand was that the impact of their decision was never going to be limited to just another layer of disillusionment for the thousands of individuals directly affected by Robodebt.
Plenty of analysis has been thrown at the NACC’s stated reasons for dropping its robodebt investigation, despite the royal commissioner delaying publication of her own findings specifically so she could refer a bunch of individuals to the NACC to look into whether their conduct met the new statutory test of corrupt conduct. I recommend Rick Morton’s searing breakdown.
As Morton notes, “corrupt conduct” encompasses far more than the common understanding of what makes for a dodgy public servant. As with the state anti-corruption laws, the freshly minted federal model is directed at breaches of public trust and abuses of office, not just brown paper envelopes.
Robodebt was an outrage, designed, perpetrated, sustained and concealed by a succession of Coalition government ministers and willing public servants, the point of which — as has so often been said — was its cruelty. It targeted the most vulnerable, and punished them for that sin. It was and will remain the ultimate expression of Scott Morrison’s ethos.
It wasn’t just evil, of course; it was illegal, from the beginning, and they knew it.
For the NACC to have all that in its hands, toss it around for a while and then say thanks, but no, no interest here, is breathtaking in the context of both how bad robodebt was and how much expectation there had been for consequences.
However, the damage is far wider. To appreciate this, we have to remember how we got here in the first place.
It’s a point often overlooked that we should not need anti-corruption bodies at all. These commissions, which now exist in every Australian jurisdiction, are extraordinary beings. They are not courts, they do not conduct adversarial justice and they offer only a facsimile of what we commonly understand as natural justice. They are, deliberately, closer to star chambers, intended to focus search lights into dark corners and flush out the rats.
In doing so, they risk catching the innocent in their nets. A finding of corrupt conduct doesn’t mean any crime has been committed, and is determined on the balance of probabilities. Careers can be ended, sometimes unfairly.
We accept these risks, solely because the alternative is worse — a political landscape littered with dodgy dealings and the steady erosion of public trust in government institutions. The need for a federal anti-corruption commission, the last one to come into existence, was urgent and had deep public support.
That is the true context of the NACC’s first inactions. The Albanese government nobbled it from birth, ignoring the public demand for transparency, deciding instead that almost all of its proceedings would be conducted in secret. Still, we hoped, it would fulfill its task with the kind of independent ferocity that has marked the ICAC’s impact on NSW public life.
The only thing worse than ignoring people’s needs is to lift their expectations and then dash them. That is what the NACC has done. It would have been far better that it never existed, than for it to dog its remit.
The NACC no doubt feels that the criticism is unwarranted and ill-informed; we the punters have no insight into its deliberations, and its role is not to satiate the bloodlust of the mob.
True, but beside the point. I could conduct a lawyerly defence of its decision too. It wouldn’t matter. If we lived in a society that enjoyed justified trust in those who govern us, NACC could slumber peacefully. We don’t — our trust in government and institutions is low and falling fast.
We looked to the umpire to restore some faith in a game we had come to believe was rigged. The umpire looked the other way.
Should the NACC have pursued referrals from the robodebt royal commission? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
