Former top mandarin Renee Leon spoke earlier this year about courage. The woman who headed the department overseeing robo-debt when its operation became a public scandal reflected on her time in the bureaucracy at an event hosted by the Institute of Public Administration Australia.
Morrison, who was social services minister during the scheme’s inception, and was responsible for bringing the plan to cabinet, received a proposition from counsel assisting the commission Justin Greggery KC.Greggery issued a number of assertions: that Morrison did not ask questions when he should have; that Morrison wanted a tough “welfare cop” on the beat; that more than a $1 billion in projected budget savings was far too attractive to ignore.
But the following month Morrison submitted the policy to cabinet with that critical advice erased. Witnesses have since told the Royal Commission they do not know how it was altered. Former DHS secretary Kathryn Campbell who headed up the department responsible for drafting the robo-debt cabinet submission, told the commission last week she didn’t know how the advice regarding the illegality of the program had disappeared.“I have found no evidence, and I was not involved with it. I think ... at some point in time, a decision was taken that that didn’t require policy and legislative change.
“I don’t know the answer to that question, and I say that in all transparency,” she said. Asked whether it simply amounted to a shortcoming of bureaucratic advice, Payne replied, “that is a question I have asked myself”.Annica Schoo, a former senior policy officer in the Department of Environment, told the“The most striking thing was how many people from the very inception thought this was a horrible idea, as well as illegal,” Schoo said.
“The department was faithfully implementing it as is our job. Once it became apparent that those debts weren’t validly raised, the program ceased, which was good,” she said. The review noted the “stifling” hierarchy limiting the capabilities of the public service, and found the authority of the public service had diminished in the face of a wider network of advice given to ministers by their own staff, consultants, and the media.
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