ASOSS Media Release
The findings of the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s Robodebt investigation will be devastating to the victims and their loved ones today.
The NACC found two public servants engaged in ‘serious corrupt conduct’ – but will not refer them for criminal prosecution. Four others, including former prime minister Scott Morrison and former secretary Kathryn Campbell, were found to not have engaged in corrupt conduct.
“For the hundreds of thousands of people harmed by Robodebt, these findings will be devastating,” said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie.
“For those who had their lives upended, who lost loved ones, who sold assets or borrowed money to pay phantom debts they never owed – this will be very hard to receive.
“Robodebt destroyed trust in government. With Robodebt, the Coalition government targeted and harmed people on very low incomes. It painted them as criminals and threatened them with jail time if they didn’t pay. Some people took their own lives. Others had relationship breakdowns.
“The Coalition Government knowingly tore apart so many lives and, and despite repeated warnings from ACOSS and many others, continued a scheme that was blatantly unfair, and causing harm. Robodebt was criticised from the beginning by people at Centrelink, by advocates, by community legal centres, and most of all by the hundreds of thousands of people it targeted.
“More than five years after the Federal Court ruled Robodebt unlawful, no criminal proceedings have taken place.
“The lack of ministerial accountability for Robodebt sends a message that people receiving social security are second-class citizens, not worthy of justice. As we have said since 2016 when we first heard of Robodebt, it was wrong and needed to be stopped. Today we stand with all affected by the scheme who still wait for justice.”
ACOSS strongly endorses the words of Robodebt Royal Commission Commissioner Catherine Holmes SC, who said: “Politicians need to lead a change in social attitudes to people receiving welfare payments. The evidence before the Commission was that fraud in the welfare system was miniscule, but that is not the impression one would get from what ministers responsible for social security payments have said over the years. Anti-welfare rhetoric is easy populism, useful for campaign purposes. It is not recent, nor is it confined to one side of politics. Those attitudes are set by politicians, who need to abandon for good – in every sense – the narrative of taxpayer versus welfare recipient.”
- Lifeline is contactable on 13 11 14.
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And yet a manufactured debt created by the Robodebt scheme made out the welfare recipient victim was a villian, a crook, a crim, for the falsified debt.
Morrison and the senior public servants face no penalty, while anyone on social security payments is made out to be a dole bludger.
Robodebt caused great harms to the victims of the scam as well as for those in lowly positions in the public service who were forced to implement the system they knew was so very wrong and corrupt.
Our convict past continues into the present. Pity we can’t flog those responsible!
Kathryn Campbell was quietly moved to another “fat” sinecure by the goverment..
Life under Labor: children as young as 10 can get jailed while corporate elites face being slapped with a soggy lettuce; use a saying that Israel wants banned and you face 2 years jail; oppose a genocide and you get kettled along with thousands of others and then bashed – but, be an integral part of Robodebt, swweeeet.
What the hell did we expect when the head of the NACC, Paul Brereton is also corrupt and being protected by the biggest organization in the country?
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/nacc-ambiguity-on-robodebt-investigation-worrying-says-kc/
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/01/is-australias-anti-corruption-watchdog-corrupt/
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/conflicts-of-interest-defending-the-indefensible/?
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/07/murdochs-news-corp-has-moved-into-the-mortgage-business-where-are-the-regulators/
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03/albaneses-politics-of-avoidance/?
Leadership? You’ve got to be kidding me.
The result expected for a ”secret investigation” after NO-GO-ALBO knackered the NACC. Was that to protect current , &/or future LABOR politicians from persecution for their ill-deeds, like Robodebt?? Without a judgment there is little likelihood of the perpetrators being held to account in a civil Court.
https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2025/12/14/nacc-commissioner-paul-brereton-blames-the-kangaroo-court-of-australia-website-for-90-complaints-against-him/
@ heather: Check out the Kangaroo Court of Australia page, and their archive of NACC posts.
Perhaps ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie could purchase a copy of the book about the Canadian “”Universal Basic Income” (UBI) model trialled for five (5) years in regional Canada, but slashed by the conservative Harper government, and analysed when sanity returned.
The UBI model provides a ”living wage” for unemployed persons based on actual costs, rather than the FRW ”idea of dole payments being an undeserved charity hand-out at ENORMOUS COST to the government & so the working taxpayer”. The only requirement was for recipients to provide the necessary research date so that the UBI could be evaluated.
Analysis of the UBI experiment showed that the cost of providing a living wage WITHOUT ANY TIME CONSUMING EXPENSIVE WORK SEEKING OBLIGATIONS was saving the Canadian Health budget MORE than the cost of UBI payments. This result occurred because the health of unemployed persons was NOT stressed with the demands of worrying about where the next meal was coming from. Indeed, many participants moved into ”hobbies” and made a financial success of the change.
Rutger Bregman (2017) Utopia for Realists: and how we can get there, 316 pp, pb, Bloomsbury, ISBN 978-1-4088-9027-1
I do now question why we even established the NACC at all, just a complete and utter waste of time.
First they established the NACC, then they staffed it with a bunch of biased Lieberal stooges, now they (surely) wonder why it is not working.
Just to look at RoboDebt they stuck Brereton as the head and he actively worked against any proper and fair process. Yet he was not even sacked for extreme bias and conflict of interest. He claimed to have recused himself yet was fully involved in the process to shut down the investigation.
Then we finally got the investigation going again and now have the final report. A mere 2 people were found to have been extremely corrupt during RoboDebt……………yet amazingly there is not enough evidence to prosecute them. As for Morriscum and his Ministers and the likes of Campbell………….zero corrupt conduct for all of them!!!!!
Now we all know in the real world it is Morriscum, his Ministers, Campbell etc who thought of RoboDebt and told their underlings (public servants) to implement the scheme. When those underlings then complain that the scheme is unfair/illegal it is up to Morriscum, his Ministers, Campbell etc to make the actual decision to keep it going. The buck always stops at the top of the tree because they are the ones who have the final decision. And now we are supposed to sit here and swallow this gigantic bag of shit that says these people were perfect little angels who did nothing wrong???????????????????
Totally unacceptable outcome.
Defend NAC.
Voters do not vote for LNP – not only did they sacrifice Aussies and their families but they thumbed their noses at justice, wisdom and compassion. Even worse LNP signed Australia up to UN AGENDA 2030, the blueprint for the building of the necessary infrastructure for one world government- destroying Australia’s national sovereignty.
Response to Pete Petrass
It is working exactly as it was intended. It was set up the way it was and with the particular people in it to protect politicians.
What this NACC decision tells everyone is that politicians can do what ever they like to whomever they like and get away with it, not that they don’t now but this finding says to every politician that they will not be held responsible for the decisions that they make that effect people’s lives, when those decisions impact the people that politicians keep telling us that they work for, ha, in negative ways.
It also tells public servants that they put their livelihood and, maybe their freedom, on the line if they give frank advice that is different to what the politician wants to hear, as, if and when it all goes pear shaped their minister is likely to throw them under the bus to protect his/her own skin.
Albanese set this up to get this particular result.
Albanese’s hubris is showing loud and clear from the NACC that is nothing but show to cravenly bowing down to trump. As a long time labor voter I am severely disappointed in this government and will seriously have to consider who to vote for at the next election.
Albanese and his government were given a huge mandate to work for the people of Australia, to make right some of the wrongs that have been visited upon them by various LNP governments, to make changes that desperately need to be done, and he has blown it.
@ Pete Petrass, Bev Poulos, Patricia: Excellent comments ….. the NO-GO-ALBO maladministration of Australian government is likely to become a one term wonder much to the delight of the EVEN LESS COMPETENT COALition.
Now tell me how that benefits Australian voters.
I’ve been waiting for the war criminals to go on trial. Given the signal coming from this outrage, I guess I shouldn’t hold my breath.
NACC, an unaccountable bunch of gutless wonders accepting the manacles of Oz political imperialism.
It is beyond mind-boggling when you think after a succession of, ironically, potential or outright corruption scandals, that Paul Brereton is still the Commissioner of the NACC and has not been fired even against a groundswell of public outrage and thousands of official complaints lodged. Because it is at least 2000 individual complaints which have been lodged against him.
However it is not mind-boggling at all, in fact the complete opposite, when you consider he is doing an excellent job for Labor. It is working exactly as intended, he is the facilitator of an org where corruption actually goes to die. The reason why he was hired is because he transpired to be excellent at burying crimes. And it continues.
The RoboDebt scandal should not be over and Australians should not let it be.
It will be finished when justice is actually done. This is about 30% justice depending whether anyone actually goes to jail as they should.