If you want some insight into the extent to which the Ombudsman’s office has been compromised, you might recall its 2017 report into Centrelink’s automated debt raising and recovery system (commonly known as ‘RoboDebt’). At today’s hearing of the RoboDebt Royal Commission, internal legal advices provided to the agency were tendered. Those advices were to the effect that it was not lawful to use ‘averaged’ ATO income information as the sole and conclusive basis on which to calculate and pursue debts. But that’s precisely what the ‘online compliance intervention’ system did (unless the victim was able to battle the inadequate Centrelink communications system – the first witness today described having to send a 71 page fax of bank statements, twice (you remember faxes?) after conversations with ‘someone’ in Centrelink, which faxes were then ‘lost’ by Centrelink).
The Ombudsman didn’t bother to ask whether Centrelink had sought and obtained legal advice about the lawfulness of the ‘online compliance intervention’ system. [But see my correction below.] The Ombudsman did say this in his report, though:
We asked DHS whether it had done modelling on how many debts were likely to be over-calculated as opposed to under-calculated. DHS advised no such modelling was done. In our view the risk of over-recovering debts from social security recipients should be the subject of more thorough research and analysis.
That’s some special genius, right there.
Maybe there should be some kind of government ‘watchdog’ with power to look into whether a government agency is pursuing powerless individuals for alleged debts that don’t exist. Let’s call that ‘watchdog’ the ‘Ombudsman’. And let’s appoint as ‘Ombudsman’ someone who understands that ‘over-recovering debts’ is a euphemism for taking money off people when they don’t actually owe it. After all, a drover’s dog knows that it’s unlawful and immoral to take money off people when they don’t actually owe it and hopefully there are candidates out there with the smarts and integrity of a drover’s dog.
Correction added 2 Nov 22: According to proceedings today at the Royal Commission, the Ombudsman
did ask for legal advices about the use of 'averaged' income data as the sole basis for calculating and pursuing debts. There followed an internal Departmental discussion about whether to provide to the Ombudsman the late 2014 advice as well as a January 2017 advice that appeared to be inconsistent with the former, but the latter - according to the lawyer who provided the advice (today's witness) - was an answer to a different and specific and highly hypothetical scenario. The author of the 2017 advice did not know whether the 2014 advice - which had been 'second counselled' by the author of the 2017 advice, was ever given to the Ombudsman. I can't find any reference to that request or what the Ombudsman did about the response, in the Ombudsman's report. In any event, I stand by my overarching view that ‘over-recovering debts’ is a euphemism for taking money off people when they don’t actually owe it, and that should have rung alarm bells, long and loud, in the Ombudsman's Office.