Yes, there is a plethora of these Robodebt assholes. But, as they continue to poke up their asshole heads, we’ll keep pointing out their assholeness. So, following Kathryn Campbell AO and Renée Leon PSM, it’s the turn of Paul Brereton AM RFD.
Paul Brereton AM RFD is commissioner of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. This was the body to which, in July 2023, six people were referred by the Robodebt Royal Commissioner to consider investigation for corrupt conduct. The NACC pondered this for four months, with Paul Brereton AM RFD having faux-recused himself. Finally, in an act of moral if not also legal perversion, the NACC decided not to investigate these six individuals. They then spent another eight months figuring out how to tell everyone, finally issuing a multiply-bollocksed media release, amounting to the greatest foot-shooting media strategy since Prince Andrew’s interview over the Epstein business.
A week after the NACC shot themselves in their big fat feet, Gail Furness SC, Inspector of the NACC, announced she would investigate the NACC for corrupt conduct. Furness’s report was handed down a couple weeks ago, and it was damning. She found that Brereton had screwed up by faux-recusing himself rather than fully recusing himself: “officer misconduct” due to a “reasonable apprehension of partiality”. She also found that the NACC had screwed up by multiply-bollocksing the media release, and by extension suggesting that Furness believes they bollocksed their incredibly strained arguments for non-investigation. Furness was also clearly less than impressed with some of the NACC’s “no big deal” submissions to her inquiry. All of this a shock to no one with a functioning brain.*
As a consequence of Furness’s report, the NACC immediately released a statement of faux-contrition,** which noted the NACC’s decision to have an “independent eminent person” reconsider the Robodebt referrals. The NACC’s faux-contrition statement also included a personal statement from Paul Brereton AM RFD, in which he opined,
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.
Which is bullshit. The “mistake” – more accurately described as “humongous mistake” – will possibly be rectified by correcting the screw-up,*** together with the people who screwed up taking proper responsibility for their screw-up. Which they haven’t. Brereton should most definitely resign and it is unclear why the entire lot of them shouldn’t go.
But of course they won’t go voluntarily. They are not the types. They are as sure of their propriety as were all the Robodebt assholes. They may not have been mates, exactly, but they are made from the same cloth. Brereton, especially. He is an asshole and he has to go.
UPDATE (24/11/24)
Last week, Paul Brereton AM RFD and other NACC folk appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Commission. It is well worth watching the video. Brereton’s self-importance and arrogance and cluelessness and windbaggedness are beyond belief.
*) Usually on posts like this I spend a decent amount of time researching enough to carefully outline the details, but I’m too tired and too busy for that, and I’m simply here to stick the boot in. For those who want the details, see Rick Morton’s typically excellent report in The Saturday Paper. For the source awfulness, Inspector Furness’s report is here, and Alan Robertson SC’s legal analysis, which underlies Furness’s report, is here.
**) For a demonstration of the fauxness of the NACC’s faux contrition, consider their July “correction to misinformation“, on whether Brereton is “a close personal friend” of one of the Robodebt persons referred to NACC, the relationship that triggered the whole thing. Compare the colourless way the relationship is characterised as “professional” in the NACC’s “correction” with Morton’s reporting of how Brereton has previously characterised the relationship: “close association”; “well known to me”. The NACC had already tried this “gloss” with Robertson, and were called out on it (par 88). Nonetheless, here it is again, in a “correction to misinformation”. These people are incredible.
***) Apart from the fact that Brereton really has to go, it is not at all clear that this reconsideration can rectify things. According to the NACC’s statement, this independent person “will decide whether or not the Commission should investigate the Robodebt referrals”. It is difficult to imagine that any new decision would be other than in favour of investigation, if only on the “let’s not get us all lynched” principle, but then what? The Commission then investigates? How are they not all tainted by the previous screw-up? And if they are all recused, who then does the actual investigation? They’ve had to make things up on the fly to even have an “independent eminent person” reconsider the referrals. God knows how they figure out who would conduct any substantive investigation.
I’m reading through Rick Morton’s book on robodebt and it surprises me (maybe it shouldn’t) how unwilling these people are to impose any real consequences on wrong doing. No one wanted to do anything too hard.
“These people” being the NACC?
To be fair, their remit is “corrupt conduct”, which is commonly understood as kickbacks and special favours and the like, and I believe the legislation is written with that kind of angle. The Robodebt assholes were obviously morally corrupt and professionally corrupt, but whether it all amounted to being legally corrupt is open to question. But, after years and years of the public service and government consciously avoiding asking this question, the NACC had a moral as well as a professional obligation to ask. And they didn’t. They refused to even investigate.
And no, you shouldn’t be surprised. They are all made from the same cloth. Being answerable for one’s actions is for the little people only. God, how I hate them.
Yes, Morton’s book is excellent (although why the hell he doesn’t have an index, God only nows). I’ll post on his book soon.
Right. Sure.
Disgraceful as it was what happened with Robodebt is fairly well understood, having had its own Royal Commission. Are there gaps in our knowledge that the NACC could uncover that the Royal Commission did not? Because there was not personal enrichment I think it is unlikely that anyone will be able to make findings that would support a criminal charge. In which case having additional NACC investigations would probably only be performative.
There should be plenty of corruption for NACC to chase down that would be new and not involve raking over old matters. Chances are they aren’t chasing down matters of significance, but you never know, they could be.
Thanks, tom. Three quick answers:
1) The Royal Commissioner explicitly referred the six people to NACC. She had a reason to do so, so why second guess her?
2) Read the way NACC worked on the referrals. Read Morton and then Furness and then Robertson. I didn’t delve into analyse further, but none of it smells kosher.
3) Sometimes “performative” is enough. The Robodebt victims were fucked over by so many authority figures for so many years. If it’s even remotely close to a judgment call to investigate these assholes, you do it.
His faux-recusal is the equivalent of us teaching that 2+2=5 for an entire year – it’s that obvious to a lawyer.
And people wonder why Trump won – the system is broken.
Click my link on the faux-recusal. It’s possibly worse than you think.