Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Beating up on the Public Service is a popular pastime in this place. I know I have been guilty of it from time to time; I will confess my sins there. It's worth remembering that the majority of public servants are just everyday Australians doing their best to serve, but we have a problem with our Public Service. It's a problem that has been created by governments and ministers not wanting honest advice, wanting just to ram their policies through, no questions asked.

Over the last 20 years, the expertise of the Public Service has been whittled away as jobs were outsourced to private consultants.

Meanwhile, the senior executive service—that's the top public servants, like robodebt's Kathryn Campbell—got big pay packets. Instead of offering free and frank advice to government, their main job was serving the government of the day and not the Australian people. As a very respected senior public servant said to me: 'In the old days we were all about policy, consulting with experts and community, and we would produce a green paper, then a white paper. Now the SES bosses have one job: to say, "Yes, Minister."'

That's what we saw with robodebt. As Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes put it in the report:

It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the Scheme's legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings.

I watched Ms Campbell giving evidence at the royal commission, and, like many Australians, I was absolutely disgusted by her response. What's even worse is the way she was just so smug about it—not her problem and not her responsibility. I was even more horrified when I found out she was being paid nearly a million bucks a year to advise on AUKUS. By the way, those families impacted by robodebt might like to know that we believe Ms Campbell is still getting her pension. That's correct: she's getting 80 per cent of her last salary, which is $720,000 in the hand. That's what she's getting.

What Australians may not know is that Campbell came from the Army. She's another major general—just another one—who used her connections to get into leadership roles in the Public Service. This happens a lot. And, like a lot of the top brass, she has medals, including the Conspicuous Service Cross in 2010, a medal that is awarded for 'outstanding devotion to duty or outstanding achievement in the application of exceptional skills, judgement or dedication'. Kathryn Campbell also has an Order of Australia.

Renee Leon, who took over from Kathryn Campbell, told the inquiry staff had been very fearful of Campbell and the reward and punishment culture—work it out—that she promoted as well as her practices of aggression and public shaming. Leon also told the inquiry that Campbell 'took credit' for the robodebt scheme and was 'rewarded' for being more responsive to the coalition government's policy agenda than other department secretaries. Leon and many others believed that Campbell's elevation to the role of Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was 'a very big reward for someone who had no background in diplomacy'. Do you know where I reckon Ms Campbell learnt her leadership style? Defence. That's exactly where she learnt it.

Ms Campbell has resigned from the Public Service and her $900,000 a year job. I'm guessing this was a relief to many. But guess what that means? It means that she dodged any chance of being held to account under the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct—the same code that was used to silence former Centrelink staff workers trying to raise the alarm about robodebt. Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes—and can I put on record what a great job you did, Commissioner; if anyone should have accolades and medals, it should be you—wrote that while the law makes clear that the Public Service Commissioner can inquire into a former APS employee's conduct, it doesn't explicitly say whether the commissioner can look into the conduct of a former agency head like Campbell. Where have I heard that before? That's right! That rings a bell! The Brereton report—the Brereton report that ruled out looking at the conduct of senior commanders in Afghanistan.

Will Kathryn Campbell be asked to hand her medals back? Will she be stripped of her Order of Australia? One of Catherine Holmes's 57 recommendations calls on the government to alter the Public Service Act to allow for disciplinary declarations to be made against former APS employees and former agency heads, a measure that already exists in Queensland. This culture of letting leaders off the hook while we interrogate the workers and throw diggers under the bus has to stop. The people who are the most accountable are apparently the least accountable, and that's that.