The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) told Tourism Australia the $137,441 travel breach by three staff last year may involve “corrupt conduct that is serious or systemic”. It also reminded the agency of its obligation to report such suspicions immediately instead of waiting months.
While the NACC decided not to pursue the matter further, commissioner Paul Brereton wrote to Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison on June 5 to say the conduct in question “could involve a breach of public trust and/or an abuse of office”.
“I am of the opinion that the issues could involve corrupt conduct that is serious or systemic,” Brereton wrote.
The matter, first reported by Crikey, has since been referred to the Australian Federal Police, which has confirmed it is investigating.
In his letter, which the Senate made public last week, Brereton noted that Tourism Australia had suspected the travel breach had occurred since at least October 20, 2023, yet had waited until January 24 to report it to the NACC.
“I must reiterate that the [National Anti-Corruption Commission Act] obliges agency heads to refer a corruption issue (that is, a question of whether a person has engaged in corrupt conduct) which could involve serious or systemic corrupt conduct to the commission as soon as reasonably practicable after becoming aware of the issue,” the letter stated, italicising certain words for emphasis.
“I accept that these are early days and that agency heads will still be becoming familiar with the practical implementation of the act”.
The letter said the NACC declined to investigate because the employment of the individuals involved in the breach had been terminated and the government had been reimbursed. In the months between realising what had happened and reporting the matter to the NACC, Tourism Australia engaged the consultancy firm Deloitte to carry out a thorough forensic audit stretching back to 2020. No further breaches were identified.
The day before Brereton’s letter was issued, Phillipa Harrison had fronted a Senate estimates committee where she claimed immunity from questioning based on advice from the NACC, saying: “The NACC have advised me that I’m unable to provide further details on the roles and the people involved until they have finished their investigations.”
In an email released in response to questions on notice from the Senate to the NACC, Tourism Australia executive general manager for corporate services Mark Craig wrote that “[we] got a bit of a grilling given today’s Crikey article. some [sic] of the senators weren’t overly happy that we didn’t answer all their questions due to the ongoing NACC investigation”.
But senators weren’t the only ones unhappy with how the immunity claim was handled. In a June 6 letter to Harrison, Brereton wrote that he had told her in a verbal conversation the previous day that he was concerned the Senate committee had been “left with a misleading impression that the commission had issued a direction that your agency was unable to answer questions about the matter”.
“In fact, our response to your request [for advice on how to handle the questioning was that] the NACC has stated that it does not comment on whether or not specific matters have been referred to it or are under investigation,” the letter continued, with the emphasis added by Brereton.
The advice to Tourism Australia further said that “if pressed”, the agency could respond that “it would be inappropriate … to comment further on these matters”.
“Thus it is not quite accurate to say that the commission provided advice that your agency was unable to provide information, let alone that we had issued a direction to that effect,” Brereton continued.
He added it was “quite understandable how that could have been misunderstood”, but asked Harrison to clarify his position to the committee. Harrison followed his advice and wrote to the committee on June 13 to make the clarification.
She also clarified that she had mistakenly told the Senate the forensic audit had stretched back to 2021, when it had actually stretched back to 2020, and asked that the record be corrected.
