The national corruption watchdog will investigate referrals it received from the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, reversing its controversial earlier decision to not pursue them.
On Tuesday, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) said it will launch inquiries into six unnamed persons to determine if they engaged in corrupt conduct.
It declined to provide reasons for launching the probes to avoid prejudicing or compromising its investigations, or “unfairly impact reputations”.
The move is an about face on the watchdog’s controversial decision last year to not pursue referrals, after finding it was unlikely to “add value in the public interest”.
At the time the watchdog said its inquiries would duplicate the work of the Royal Commission and would be unlikely to uncover new evidence.
The decision was criticised and justice experts questioned the reasoning because the NACC does have jurisdiction and capacity that is different to a Royal Commission in making corruption findings.
The decision not to investigate triggered calls for inaugural commissioner Paul Brereton, a former NSW Court of Appeal justice to resign.
An independent review was launched into the NACC’s handling of the referrals by its independent inspector, Gail Furness.
Ms Furness found Mr Brereton had engaged in official misconduct for failing to properly manage a declared conflict of interest with one of the referred officials, a senior public servant.
“I found that the NACC Commissioner’s involvement in the decision-making was comprehensive, before, during and after the 19 October 2023 meeting at which the substantive decision was made not to investigate the referrals,” she wrote in the public report.
“The NACC Commissioner contributed to the discussion at that meeting, settled the minutes of that meeting and was involved in formulating the reasons for decision and also the terms of the media statement.
“By participating in the decision-making in the way he did, the NACC Commissioner made a mistake of law or fact. The mistake was as to the requirements of procedural fairness, which amounts to an error of judgement rather than a matter of mere procedure.”
In response, the NACC appointed former High Court Justice Geoffrey Nettle to reconsider the decision not to investigate the Robodebt referrals.
On Tuesday, the NACC issued a statement saying, as a result of Mr Nettle’s decision, it will now investigate the six referrals.
“The Commission is now making arrangements to ensure the impartial and fair investigation of the referrals, as it did with the appointment of Mr Nettle as independent reconsideration delegate,” the statement said.
“The Commissioner and those Deputy Commissioners who were involved in the original decision not to investigate the referrals, will not participate in the investigation.”
The NACC does not publish reasons for its investigations before conclusion to avoid prejudicing investigations, disclosing information illegally, compromise pathways, “and/or unfairly impact reputations and rights of individuals to impartial adjudication”.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.