Globetrotting WA ombudsman Chris Field resigns amid scandal

WA’s ombudsman has resigned after the state’s Corruption and Crime Commission found he had created a ‘sham’ process to approve his own extensive travel to destinations around the world.

WA’s long-serving Parliamentary Commissioner for Administrative Investigations Chris Field has resigned.

Western Australia’s ombudsman has resigned after the state’s Corruption and Crime Commission found he had created a “sham” process to approve his own extensive travel to destinations around the world.

WA’s long-serving Parliamentary Commissioner for Administrative Investigations, Chris Field, on Tuesday handed in his resignation jsut hours after the CCC announced a finding of serious misconduct against him.

A report tabled by the CCC on Tuesday detailed a series of shortcomings during Mr Field’s tenure. The CCC found Mr Field, who it described as an unreliable witness, attempted to deceive WA Treasurer Rita Saffioti and breached procurement rules over the process that saw him commit €129,640 ($211,356) of taxpayers money for a survey without going through a procurement process.

The CCC said he had created a procurement memorandum that contained falsehoods as part of that attempted deceit.

Prior to Mr Field’s resignation, WA Premier Roger Cook said Mr Field should “significantly reconsider his position” in the wake of the CCC’s findings.

He noted that in the event Mr Field did not resign, the WA parliament could issue a resolution instructing Governor Christopher Dawson to remove Mr Field from the role. The governor could also make that decision on his own.

“We have a number of mechanisms available to us,” Mr Cook said. “But I think the ombudsman himself should reflect on these findings and take the appropriate course of action.”

Mr Field in Pakistan.

The CCC report detailed how Mr Field travelled business class to destinations around the world in a 17-month period after he was elected president of the Vienna-based International Ombudsman Institute.

The IOI is a global association for the co-operation and support of independent ombudsman institutions around the world.

A timeline prepared by the CCC documented how he travelled to New York, Vienna, Paris, Budapest, Wellington, Warsaw, Kyiv, Morocco, Pakistan, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Taiwan, Italy and Bahrain between May 2022 and October 2023.

Mr Field made no secret of his travel, with 55 pages of the 2022-23 Ombudsman WA annual report devoted to documenting his overseas engagements. That included dozens of photos of him with international dignitaries, including Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.

The CCC report found Mr Field should have had his travel approved by a minister.

Mr Field with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Clear and unambiguous wording of the Premier’s Circular on travel … requires all overseas travel be approved by a minister. Mr Field never sought approval for his travel,” the CCC report said.

“In his view, it would have been fundamentally against the principles of his office for him to have done so.”

The report described the “sham” process how when Mr Field decided that overseas travel was required, he would then instruct his executive assistant to prepare a business case based on a template. On multiple occasions, that case was prepared after the travel had taken place.

“The proper objective of a business case is to provide a reason for a decision-maker to consider why a course of action or expenditure is justified. Mr Field approved the travel first and the business case later,” the CCC report said.

The CCC found the international travel did not amount to ­serious misconduct.

Mr Field addresses an international conference virtually from Perth.

It was his decision to enter into a contract with the OECD to produce a survey, and his subsequent attempted “deceit” of Ms Saffioti that led to the finding.

The CCC found an undated procurement memo created to satisfy the OECD invoice as valid was “false in material particulars”.

“To be pellucidly clear, in the CCC’s opinion Mr Field deliberately attempted to mislead the Treasurer to accept that the OECD project had gone through a procurement process in accordance with the Procurement Act and Procurement Rules. Manifestly, it had not,” the CCC said.

Mr Field stood aside from his role at the IOI in February and has been on leave since giving testimony in public hearings in April.