The ‘horror story’ of Robodebt ‘monster’ is a shameful saga of cascading failures

Michael Pascoe writes in The Newdaily

When Scott Morrison gets around to disputing the Robodebt Royal Commission’s findings about his crucial role in the scandal – the disaster, the obscenity, the potential crime – remember this: The commission’s findings fit Mr Morrison’s modus operandi.

His inevitable claims of innocence will not fit said MO, aside from it always seeming to be someone else’s fault when things go bad, from the way he first won preselection through to Jen and the girls making him secretly holiday in Hawaii.

And another thing about Robodebt: It came together extremely quickly in early 2015 at Mr Morrison’s behest, but it was actually decades in the making – the culmination of the degradation of the public service and Australian politics’ descent into snarly populism, the latter assisted by the baser instincts of tabloid journalism and radio shock jocks. I’ll come back to that.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ report reads like a horror story, which it is.

Penetrating dissection

The careful recording and dissection of the cascading failures that started with Mr Morrison being appointed Minister for Social Services on December 23, 2014, have the feeling of growing foreboding that Stephen King engenders.

Foreboding stalks the unveiling of meetings and memos, phone calls and diary notes, as good people and sound advice are ignored or shafted, as a minister and departmental secretary pursue their ambitions, as legal and ethical standards are seemingly discarded as inconvenient.

The picture that rapidly emerges is of a new minister elevated to Cabinet’s Expenditure Review Committee (ERC) wanting to make his mark, wanting to impress both his favourite media and his colleagues, wanting a big figure prize to take to the ERC ahead of the new budget as the “strong welfare cop on the beat”.

Say, $1.2 billion from alleged welfare cheats and rorters.

Remember that Mr Morrison’s department was Social Services (DSS).

The Department of Human Services (DHS) answered to Marise Payne, Mr Morrison’s junior at that end of the government. Kathryn Campbell was Secretary of DHS.

“On the day of Mr Morrison’s appointment, Ms Payne signed a letter to him, noting an arrangement for Ms Campbell to meet with him in order to brief him on the key priorities and challenges for DHS,” the Royal Commission reports. “That meeting took place on 30 December 2014 while Ms Payne was on leave.

“Ms Campbell, who was also on leave at the time, travelled from Queensland to Sydney for the meeting. As the Secretary of DHS, it was uncommon for Ms Campbell to meet directly with the Minister for Social Services, as she was not a ‘direct report’ to that Minister. When she did meet with the Minister for Social Services, it was usually in the presence of the Minister for Human Services.”

The Royal Commission believes Ms Campbell knew of a fledgling idea within DSS for saving money, a “likelihood that Ms Campbell was aware of the proposal in a general sense, it is likely that it was raised, at least in broad terms”.

A senior advisor to Mr Morrison took notes of the meeting, recording a short list of matters under the heading “most excited”.

“It is inferred that it was Mr Morrison who was ‘most excited’ about the integrity package,” Commissioner Holmes finds.

The Royal Commission believes Ms Campbell knew of a fledgling idea within DSS for saving money, a “likelihood that Ms Campbell was aware of the proposal in a general sense, it is likely that it was raised, at least in broad terms”.

A senior advisor to Mr Morrison took notes of the meeting, recording a short list of matters under the heading “most excited”.

“It is inferred that it was Mr Morrison who was ‘most excited’ about the integrity package,” Commissioner Holmes finds.

An infernal birth

And from there, the monster was born – and born rapidly – as Mr Morrison pushed for his prize to take to the ERC.

Senior staff and legal officers within DSS red-flagged the thing that became Robodebt from the start, but they were steadily sidelined or ignored, their references to legal doubts and the need for legislation steadily watered down and deleted as Robodebt was rushed into action.

The Royal Commissioner simply doesn’t believe Mr Morrison’s claim long after the event that he thought income averaging was existing practice.

“The Commission rejects as untrue Mr Morrison’s evidence that he was told that income averaging as contemplated in the Executive Minute was an established practice and a ‘foundational way’ in which DHS worked.”

And, being the excellent lawyer that she is, Catherine Holmes builds chapter and verse to support that view.

But that’s only a small part of her Scott Morrison verdict. There was the matter of a vital page in an executive minute that Mr Morrison had, but the page was not circulated with the rest of the minute.

Bottom line: “Mr Morrison knew that the use of income averaging was the primary basis of the ‘new approach’ described in the Executive Minute and that DSS had advised DHS that legislative change was required to implement the DHS proposal in that way.”

The New Policy Proposal (NPP) represented a complete reversal of the legal position without explanation. Mr Morrison was not entitled without further question to rely upon the contradictory content of the NPP on the question of the DSS legal position when he proposed the NPP to the ERC.

The proper administration of his department required him to make inquiries about why, in the absence of any explanation, DSS appeared to have reversed its position on the need for legislative change. If he had asked Ms Wilson, she would have told him that it was because DHS had (ostensibly) reversed its position on using income averaging. He chose not to inquire.

“Mr Morrison allowed Cabinet to be misled because he did not make that obvious inquiry. He took the proposal to Cabinet without necessary information as to what it actually entailed and without the caveat that it required legislative and policy change to permit the use of the ATO PAYG data in the way proposed in circumstances where: He knew that the proposal still involved income averaging; only a few weeks previously he had been told of that caveat; nothing had changed in the proposal; and he had done nothing to ascertain why the caveat no longer applied. He failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that Cabinet was properly informed about what the proposal actually entailed and to ensure that it was lawful,” the Commissioner has written.

After that, whatever Mr Morrison might now claim, his position in federal Parliament is untenable.

An Energiser Bunny

As stated at the outset, the commission’s findings fit Mr Morrison’s MO.

He was an Energiser Bunny of a minister.

He was down in the detail of his first portfolio, Immigration, forever wanting more information from his department.

He was the same as Treasurer, having a thirst for information. He was well regarded within the Reserve Bank for his desire for engagement – unlike his successor, Josh Frydenberg, who wasn’t nearly as interested.

Mr Morrison was the prime minister who felt he had to secretly have half a dozen other ministries.

It would have been out of character for Mr Morrison not to have known.

As for the public servants who failed the nation:

“The failure of DSS and DHS to give Mr Morrison frank and full advice before and after the development of the NPP is explained by the pressure to deliver the budget expectations of the government and by Mr Morrison, as the Minister for Social Services, communicating the direction to develop the NPP through the Executive Minute.”

There is criticism of DSS deputy secretary Serena Wilson in the report, but she has proven to be an extremely rare bird in the Robodebt jungle: She has put her hand up, she has sincerely apologised and shed light on the Coalition’s determination to punish the “undeserving” poor.

That’s the other picture to emerge, a long targeting of “dole bludger” myths by the Coalition. It’s grubby populist politics that runs well in the Murdoch press and on tabloid TV and shock jock radio – the Coalition’s favourite outlets.

In Mr Morrison’s own words before the commission:

“Of course, social welfare system – the social security system is paid for by taxpayers, and the system needs to be fair to those who receive benefits as well as those who pay for them, the taxpayers. And that was a very strong view of our government and the principle of mutual obligation which was established in particular by Prime Minister Howard.”

The politics of snark, decades in the making, combined with ambitious public servants keen to give their minister what the minister wanted collided in the first couple of fevered months in 2015 under Scott Morrison.

The rest – Tudge, Porter, Robert, Payne – fell into place with denial and cover up.

And people died.

A horror story.

THis article was originally published by The NEWDAILY

Royal commissioner Catherine Holmes ruled former Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell sought to not go ahead with legal advice into the scheme.

Former top public servant Kathryn Campbell went on leave from her $900,000 a year job with the Defence Department last week – a day before the robo-debt royal commission made damning findings against her.

There are now doubts within Defence over whether Campbell will return from leave after the royal commission made a range of scathing findings including that she repeatedly failed to act when the scheme’s flaws and illegality became apparent.