A bureaucrat who helped manage the Robodebt "crisis" in 2017 has told a royal commission it is "normal practice" for public servants to provide wording to independent statutory bodies investigating government programs.
Jason McNamara, former general manager of the integrity and information group at Services Australia, is the first witness before a new two-week block of the royal commission's public hearings, as it investigates the way the unlawful scheme was designed and implemented.
Mr McNamara told the royal commission he was brought into a new role in January 2017, when the scheme was in "crisis".
He dealt with media enquiries, ministerial briefings, and a Senate inquiry into the data-matching scheme, which was at the time attracting significant negative attention.
Counsel Assisting, Angus Scott KC, questioned him about assisting with a 2017 ombudsman investigation into robodebt, asking if Mr McNamara saw an opportunity to "get the ombudsman to make findings that aligned with the department's narrative".
"Well, it's useful if the ombudsman has the correct reflection," Mr McNamara said.
"Criticism of the agency was not invalid, but things … which were completely false, it was useful if someone else independently looked at the data, looked at the issue and came to the same conclusions we had, that was useful.
"If we could influence them to do that, that was definitely part of what we wanted to do."
Mr Scott asked: "So the ombudsman is an independent statutory investigative body and it would be useful if the ombudsman would make findings that were consistent with the department's messaging?"
Mr McNamara replied: "Yeah, and with the facts. And with the facts."
'Great opportunity to effectively co-write' ombudsman's report
The commission was shown an email from Michael Robinson, from the legal services branch of the Department of Human Services to Karen Harfield from Services Australia's customer compliance division, dated January 30 2017, which attached documents from the ombudsman's office and discussed formulating an initial response.
In the email, Mr Robinson wrote: "Karen, having read the report outline I think the department has been given a great opportunity to effectively co-write the report with the ombudsman's office (OO)."
"Given the time pressure the OO is under, any suggested wording you provide in response to their dot points will enable them to do a quick copy-and-paste in many instances … where there is general agreement or at least not totally opposing views."
Mr McNamara was forwarded the email and asked for his suggestions.
Mr Scott asked Mr McNamara what he understood the words "effectively co-write the report" meant.
"I think what Michael's probably suggesting there is we can provide a fair bit of input, and as long as they're agreeable, they'll accept our input," he said.
"It was an opportunity to work with them. They're open-minded to content. And if you're writing this to Karen, it's more likely the technical aspects of how the program operates."
Mr Scott suggested that Mr Robinson was saying the ombudsman was under significant time pressure to complete the investigation, and the department could cut and paste tranches of its own wording into the ombudsman's report.
"I think we can definitely put material to them," Mr McNamara responded.
"It's not just put material to them, it's cut and paste tranches," said Mr Scott.
Mr McNamara replied: "Yeah, but the ombudsman's an independent statutory office holder. If he wants to reject our words, it's up to him. But there's nothing wrong with suggesting wording, this is fairly normal practice with both ombudsman and AAO reports...
"In my experience, it's fairly normal practice for both the ombudsman and the auditor-general to reject those suggestions but [public service] agencies do that all the time."
Mr Scott pressed: "Cut and paste words into the independent body's report?"
Mr McNamara replied: "Yeah. But in the end, the ombudsman's signing off the report, he's not happy with it, he's not going to sign off on it. It's quite normal, it's quite a normal practice."
Department staff had 'terrible time' from negative press
The royal commission was later shown a job application from Mr McNamara, where he wrote of his experience working on Robodebt, including that "I shaped the ombudsman report."
Mr Scott asked what he was referring to.
"One of the criteria is influencing … that's what you're trying to address, to be able to say I was able to successfully influence an independent decision-maker," Mr McNamara responded.
"It's important, you know, the ombudsman, the auditor-general, these people don't necessarily take a lot of feedback so I'm trying to say that I was able to successfully influence them."
Mr Scott asked: "To shape their report?"
"Yeah, because normally most of those independent people will reject things. I think I was able to use my skills to influence that, in terms of my intellect and my knowledge, to change their minds," Mr McNamara replied.
He also said staff "had a terrible time" from the negative press.
"It wasn't the actual experience of administering the program?" interjected the commissioner Catherine Holmes SC.
"A combination thereof," Mr McNamara said.
"They obviously have to take the negative phone calls from customers … and then you know, they're going off to the barbecue and someone's saying, where do you work? It's not an easy job what they do and what we did in 2016 did not make their job easier."
Senior figures lost confidence in compliance division
Mr McNamara also told the commission he met with then minister Alan Tudge between half a dozen and a dozen times over a six month period in 2017, and was on the phone with his office more frequently than that.
He described Robodebt as having "gone off the rails" and being under a state of "hyper-care" by 2017 — that is, the minister and his office needed to be kept across every detail about it.
"Would it be right that you understood that negative reporting to present a risk to the department?" asked Counsel Assisting Mr Scott.
"Oh yeah, it was definitely negative to our reputation and the reputation of the government," Mr McNamara said.
He also said senior department figures and the minister had lost confidence in what they were being told by the compliance division, and did not believe what they were saying to be accurate.
This fortnight of hearings will call senior bureaucrats, and former government ministers Scott Morrison and Marise Payne to give evidence.
