DPS secretary Rob Stefanic says relationship with Cate Saunders was a ‘close friendship’

Former Department of Parliamentary Services deputy secretary Cate Saunders was paid an exit package of more than $315k after her boss, Rob Stefanic, disclosed a ‘perceived’ conflict of interest.

Department of Parliamentary Services secretary Rob Stefanic says there was nothing other than a close friendship between himself and his former deputy secretary Cate Saunders. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

Rob Stefanic, a senior bureaucrat at Parliament House, has denied he was in a relationship with his deputy secretary Cate Saunders while he was her boss, amid revelations Ms Saunders was paid an exit package of more than $315k.

But the head of the Department of Parliamentary Services – which supports the operations of parliament and its MPs – refused to say whether he was romantically involved with Ms Saunders before or after her employment at DPS between December 2017 and October 2023, declaring it was “simply not relevant”.

During hours of Senate estimates questioning on Tuesday, Mr Stefanic also revealed he declared a “perceived” conflict of interest to the Australian Public Service Commissioner in August 2022 following “gossip and rumour around the building”.

Formerly deputy-secretary Cate Saunders.

He received advice from the APSC that Ms Saunders could work in another agency to “assist management” of the conflict.

Eight months later in April 2023, Ms Saunders went on a six-month secondment to Services Australia.

Two-thirds of the way through that secondment she received an offer to take an “incentive to retire” package, with Mr Stefanic signing a delegation to the chief executive of Services Australia to negotiate the remuneration.

The exit package was worth $315,125.85 and Ms Saunders finished with DPS on October 1, 2023.

She’s now a Canberra real estate agent.

There were no other examples of incentive to retire packages being offered to people on secondment from DPS in the last decade.

During a tense exchange, One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts asked Mr Stefanic if he had been in a romantic relationship with Ms Saunders while he was her boss.

Initially Mr Stefanic would not answer Senator Roberts series of questions, saying his personal privacy had already been “considerably violated”.

Eventually he responded: “To that end I’ll give you a simple answer and that is no … The perceptions of a conflict of interest are almost as important as an actual conflict of interest for people such as myself. Where any friendship would seem to be, would have the perception of it … (being) less than impartial, I make the appropriate declarations, as necessary with the legislation.”

Under questioning from Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume, Mr Stefanic clarified he had declared to the APSC “perceptions of a close relationship”.

“What there was was a close friendship,” Mr Stefanic said.

Senator Hume: “That was being perceived as a conflict?”
Mr Stefanic: “Correct.”

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Mr Stefanic formally lodged the “perceived” conflict of interest with parliament’s presiding officers, Speaker of the House Milton Dick and Senate president Sue Lines, in June last year.

Ms Saunders, who was the department’s chief operating officer before being promoted to the deputy secretary role reinstated by Mr Stefanic, was chosen for the job through a “standard merit selection process”.

The Coalition meanwhile seized on Senate estimates evidence from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water that the Environmental Defenders Office would receive more than $15m in government funding by 2029-30, saying it was a “reckless use of taxpayer resources”.

“Even after a scathing verdict of misconduct by a Federal Court judge, a departmental referral, an internally commissioned review, scrutiny at the Expenditure Review committee, a departmental-commissioned probe by a law firm, a referral to the Northern Territory Law Society for potential misconduct, the holding up of hundreds of millions of dollars of nation-building projects, and with communities on edge amid a cost of living crisis, the Albanese government has decided to plunge millions more dollars into the Environmental Defenders Office with certainty that funding for the organisation will extend ad nauseam over the Labor government’s lifetime,” opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam said.