‘Furious tirade’: Shorten slams robo-debt public servant’s claims she was a ‘scapegoat’

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has slammed former top public servant Kathryn Campbell for launching a “furious tirade blaming everyone else” after she claimed she was “set up as the scapegoat” for the robo-debt crisis.

Campbell – who headed departments involved in robo-debt from 2011 to 2021 – was found to have breached the public service code a dozen times in a report released on Friday. She told The Australian she rejected all findings from the royal commission into the controversial scheme, accusing Shorten of politicising her role.

“There had been ministerial comments from Minister Shorten about me and no one else, just me. He drew parallels about problems with [former prime minister Scott] Morrison and I. He did try and connect me to Mr Morrison, so I thought there was a bit of an angle there,” she said on Saturday.

Former Department of Human Services secretary Kathryn Campbell.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The Coalition-era scheme, overseen by ministers including Morrison and Alan Tudge, issued automated debts to social security recipients based on unlawful calculations, traumatising some recipients. The resulting political scandal culminated in a royal commission, which delivered its findings in July last year.

Shorten, who led the political campaign against robo-debt and helped create a class action, said in Melbourne on Saturday that Campbell “launched a furious tirade blaming everyone else”.

“Ms Campbell, you are not a scapegoat; you were involved in robo-debt. There were 430,000 scapegoats; they are our fellow Australian citizens who had unlawful debt notices raised against them by the most powerful institution in Australia,” he said.

“Ms Campbell says that the attacks on her have been political. The reality is the attacks on 430,000 people using welfare were political. The politics wasn’t against the Coalition government; it was by the Coalition government.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Robo-debt was a shocking betrayal and failure of empathy towards vulnerable people who needed support from the government, and today and yesterday, we’ve seen one of the key central actors in the tragedy of robo-debt, yet again, in my opinion, fail to show empathy to the victims.”

In June, the National Anti-Corruption Commission declined to investigate the royal commission’s findings, instead referring it to the public service watchdog. A section of the commission’s report that named the public servants involved remains secret, leading advocates to claim the officials would get away with their failures.

The Australian Public Service Commission’s report released on Friday found Campbell failed to respond to whistleblower complaints and investigate legal concerns and did not inform her minister of issues with the scheme. She was cleared of other allegations, including misleading cabinet, directing legal advice and failing to discharge her duties.

Charles Sturt University vice chancellor Renee Leon was also named to have breached the public service code a dozen times and said in a statement on Friday she stood by her actions. Ten other government officials were also found to have breached public service rules but were not named.

In total, the code of conduct was found to have been breached 97 times.

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