Senior government employee Kathryn Campbell left the Department of Defence after receiving harsh criticism for her involvement in the Robodebt scam.
Following the release of the Robodebt royal commission’s final report, Ms. Campbell was removed from her position on the AUKUS advisory group.
The department in charge of the illicit programme was led by Ms. Campbell.
She received harsh criticism from the royal commission for her part in the scandal: “When exposed to information that revealed the unlawfulness of income averaging, she did nothing of substance.”
Between 2011 and 2017, Ms. Campbell served as the department’s secretary. She also held the position at the time Robodebt was established in 2014.
The AUKUS position, which paid around $900,000 a year, was surreptitiously transferred by the federal Labour administration when it took office from Ms. Campbell’s previous position as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Defence can confirm it has accepted Ms. Kathryn Campbell’s resignation from the Department with effect from Friday, July 21, 2023, according to a statement on its website.
“Defence will not comment further on this matter,” they said.
The royal commission concluded that Ms. Campbell “did nothing of substance” after learning of the program’s illegality and misled the federal cabinet about Robodebt before an Expenditure Review Committee in 2015.
The royal commission findings stated that “Ms Campbell had been responsible for a department that had established, implemented, and maintained an unlawful programme.”
“When made aware of material exposing the unlawfulness of income averaging, she took no meaningful action. She missed opportunities to seek legal counsel regarding that practise when they were available.
Despite Ms. Campbell’s resignation being publicised on the Defence website, Minister for Defence Personnel Matt Keogh stated he was unable to confirm it when asked.
According to the minister, the previous administration should be held accountable for the illegal scheme in the eyes of the general public.
“The critical focus here needs to be the failure at the level of government, the ministers that were responsible, their failures to keep their own cabinet colleagues apprised of exactly how this programme was operating,” he said. “When we look at the entire Robodebt scandal and the royal commission and the findings that it handed down.”
“That was a failure by the ministers, it was a failure by the last government, and that is where the focus of the report and people’s attention on how that all unfolded needs to be.”
