The national anti-corruption watchdog will reconsider its decision not to probe robodebt referrals from the royal commission after uncovering a “mistake of law or fact”.
National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) Inspector Gail Furness announced in June she would investigate the newly established body’s choice not to look into the six public officials referred to it by the royal commission, a controversial move which had prompted over 900 complaints.
Furness determined commissioner Paul Brereton did not properly deal with a conflict of interest which should have required him to excuse himself from the process.
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Brereton declared he had a “close association” with one of the people referred to the NACC by the royal commission and delegated decision-making to one of his deputies.
But Furness said Brereton should have removed himself entirely.
“By participating in the decision-making in the way he did, the NACC commissioner made a mistake of law or fact,” the review said.
Because of this, the review found NACC’s decision may not have been “impartial”.
NACC said it will have an independent “eminent person” to decide whether the commission should reconsider the original decision.
The watchdog said it found the “mistake involved a misapprehension by the commissioner of the extent to which a perceived conflict of interest required him to be isolated from the decision-making process”.
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“The opinion was to the effect that the commissioner’s participation in some parts of the process meant the decision was affected by apprehended bias,” NACC said.
Furness’ report “contains no suggestion of actual bias and no finding of intentional wrongdoing or other impropriety”.
The commissioner said he accepted his judgement was “mistaken” and took sole responsibility.
“Mistakes are always regrettable, but the most important thing is that they be put right. This mistake will be rectified by having the decision reconsidered by an independent eminent person,” the commissioner said.
“Meanwhile, the commission is focused on its 29 current corruption investigations and 31 preliminary investigations.”
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The NACC said it will provide more updates when an appointment of the independent eminent person has been finalised.
The watchdog said in June it would not pursue a corruption probe into the public officials involved in the illegal debt recovery scheme.
Robodebt raised $1.73 billion in unlawful debts against more than 400,000 people during its four-and-a-half years of operation, and the royal commission found it had led to three suicides, and likely many more.
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