Kathryn Campbell has been suspended without pay from her $900,000 defence job

Anthony Albanese confirmed the decision and said there’d been an ‘appropriate’ response from the public service to the Robodebt royal commission.

Kathryn Campbell was a departmental secretary between 2011 and 2022, before being moved to a lucrative AUKUS role. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Anthony Albanese has confirmed his department has suspended senior public servant Kathryn Campbell without pay from her $900,000 Defence job, after the Robodebt royal commission’s damning findings against her.

Ms Campbell’s future in the public service has been in doubt for weeks in the wake of the royal commission report, which found she failed to act on advice the scheme was unlawful.

The Prime Minister said the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and “appropriate bodies” had decided to suspend her without pay.

“It’s not appropriate, given the potential legal matters that are involved, to go through all of the detail there but certainly there’s been an appropriate response from my department and from the public service to the royal commission findings,” Mr Albanese told ABC radio.

“Most people who have a look at the human tragedy that was caused by Robodebt and the findings of the royal commission are very, very clear about failings by the Morrison government, and indeed before going back to when Scott Morrison was the (social services) minister, but also some failings with the bureaucracy as well, and it’s appropriate that there be a response to that.”

Ms Campbell, Department of Human Services secretary from 2011-17 and Social Services secretary from 2017-21, was moved into a new job advising on the AUKUS agreement weeks before she was dumped from her one-year role as DFAT secretary.

Mr Morrison has rejected the commission findings against him.