This article exposes the big lie, with documented evidence, the federal government has pushed that the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is independent of government.
That lie is exposed below in the email trail between me, the NACC and Inspector of the NACC and proves that the federal government is corruptly inferring with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the NACC and Inspector of the NACC.
I sent 2 FOI requests in September 2024, one to the NACC and one to the Inspector of the NACC and both FOI requests ended up in the hands of the Attorney-General’s Department FOI team. That alone should concern every Australian.
It means that Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus’s Attorney-General’s Department has eyes and ears into the inner-workings of the NACC and Inspector of the NACC FOI requests and is part of the decision-making team for their FOI requests.
It says on the NACC’s website “Overview” page:
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is an independent Commonwealth agency. We detect, investigate and report on serious or systemic corruption in the Commonwealth public sector.
We also educate the public service, and the public, about corruption risks and prevention.
The NACC mission is to enhance integrity in the Commonwealth public sector by deterring, detecting and preventing corrupt conduct involving Commonwealth public officials through education, monitoring, investigation, reporting and referral.
Our independence from government means the government is not able to tell the NACC what to investigate, or how to do its job. (Click here to read more)
But as you will see below the government does oversee the FOI requests for the Inspector of the NACC, and on at least one occasion, colluded with the NACC FOI team to avoid complying with my September FOI request.
Below is a video of this article. (Click here to watch the below video on the Kangaroo Court of Australia YouTube channel)
23rd of August FOI requests – Regarding Robodebt
The NACC dealt with its own FOI request in August, but the Attorney-General’s Department is overseeing FOI requests to the Inspector of the NACC for my August and September requests, which allows the A-G’s Department to have oversight of the Inspector of the NACC (INACC) and control the flow of information to the media.
On the 23rd of August 2024 I emailed 2 FOI requests, one to the NACC and another to the Inspector of the NACC requesting documents regarding Robodebt.
The August FOI request to the NACC has been denied on the basis I applied for too much information, and it would take too long to comply with it. I will appeal it. The August FOI request to the Inspector of the NACC is still to be decided. I have been given the run around with both applications to different degrees.
What was very odd was the Attorney-General’s Department FOI section responded on behalf of the Inspector of the NACC and I have dealt with the A-G’s Department FOI section since then.
On Tuesday the 3rd of September 2024 at 4:43 PM I received an email from the Attorney-General’s department which said,
“I refer to your request under the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (FOI Act) received by the Inspector of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (INACC) on 23 August 2024 for access to documents.”
And: “The purpose of this email is to advise you the scope of your request is too broad in its current form and invites you to narrow the request.”
The rest of the email is not important for this article. What is important is that I had to negotiate a narrower scope of my FOI request with the Attorney-General’s department, not directly with the Inspector of the NACC.
I knew straight away it was not acceptable for the government to be playing the middle-man with my FOI request. But I thought I would wait before I exposed it to see if further evidence of government interference came to hand and it did with my September request as per below.
26th of September FOI requests – Regarding Inspector of the NACC’s update on the 26th of September
On the 26th of September 2024 I emailed 2 new FOI requests, one to the NACC and another to the Inspector of the NACC requesting documents relevant to the Inspector of the NACC’s update on the 26th of September.
It says on the Inspector of the NACC’s website:
The Inspector’s inquiry into the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s decision not to investigate the referrals from the Robodebt Royal Commission.
Between June and August 2024, the National Anti-Corruption Commission provided the Inspector with documents the Inspector had requested. On 3 September 2024, the Inspector asked the National Anti-Corruption Commission to provide submissions on a range of specified matters.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission has advised that it anticipates that it will provide those submissions by 21 October 2024. (Click here to read more)
I sent the same FOI request to both the NACC and Inspector of the NACC in case one of them tried the go-slow routine which they did with my August FOI requests. They did not fail to disappoint again.
This time the Attorney-General’s Department FOI section emailed me on the 3rd of October at 10.21am, on behalf of the Inspector of the NACC, and said:
“We are writing to acknowledge your FOI request to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) Inspector, which has been forwarded to the FOI team within the Attorney-General’s Department (the department) for processing under administrative support arrangements with the Office of the Inspector of the NACC. We write to acknowledge your request, seek an extension of time for processing, and seek your agreement to exclude certain information from your request.”
I agreed to the extension of time request and the rest of their email is not important for this article.
But it’s worth noting they said, “has been forwarded to the FOI team within the Attorney-General’s Department (the department) for processing under administrative support arrangements with the Office of the Inspector of the NACC”. What happened to being independent of Government? That seems to be an admission of the big lie that the NACC is independent of government.
On the 9th of October the NACC’s FOI section contacted me and said:
Transfer to the Inspector of the Commission
The Commission is seeking to transfer the request to the Inspector of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (the Inspector) in accordance with s 16(1)(b) of the FOI Act, as the subject matter is more closely connected with the functions of the Inspector.
While preparing the transfer, the Inspector advised that it had received the same request from you, in identical terms. If the transfer is finalised, the Inspector will have two identical requests to process.
Accordingly, we invite you to withdraw your request to the Commission, noting that the Inspector is already processing an identical request. (Click here to read the full letter)
They sent me a follow-up email on the Friday the 11th of October at 11.44am saying “Can you please advise whether you accept withdrawing the application given the same request was made to the Inspector?”
On the 11th of October I sent the NACC the below email:
From: SHANE DOWLING
Sent: Friday, 11 October 2024 2:29 PM
To: NACC – Freedom of Information
Subject: RE: FOI request – Shane Dowling – 26th of September 2024 [SEC=OFFICIAL]
Dear FOI Officer
The Inspector of the NACC is investigating the NACC after “complaints about the decision by the National Anti-Corruption Commission not to commence a corruption investigation into the referrals concerning six public officials from the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.”
“Ms Furness SC said, “Many of those complaints allege corrupt conduct or maladministration by the NACC in making that decision.””
Given that, it is scandalous that NACC staff are communicating with the Inspector of the NACC’s staff regarding my FOI application which relates to the NACC Inspector’s investigation into the NACC regarding Robodebt.
It is an abuse of process by the NACC and Inspector of the NACC. While it might be legal under FOI laws, it is ethically wrong and shows FOI laws need to be amended so this abuse does not happen again.
The average person would think there is a possibility that the NACC and Inspector of the NACC are colluding in a conspiracy to conceal a serious indictable offence which is the corrupt conduct the Inspector of the NACC is investigating.
For that reason, I will not be withdrawing my FOI application which you have requested I do.
My advice is for the NACC to comply with my FOI application and not send my FOI application to the Inspector of the NACC as you propose.
Regards
Shane Dowling
NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Inspector of the NACC Gail Furness SC
On the 15th of October I received the below email from the Attorney-General’s Department FOI section on behalf of the Inspector of the NACC:
From: AGD FOI Requests
Sent: Tuesday, 15 October 2024 2:47 PM
To: SHANE DOWLING
Cc: AGD FOI Requests
Subject: Transfer of FOI request from the NACC to INACC – Seeking agreement to withdraw duplicate request
OFFICIAL
Dear Shane,
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has transferred your Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Inspector of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (INACC) under s 16(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. This has been forwarded to the Attorney-General’s Department (the department) for processing under administrative support arrangements with the Office of the INACC.
Your request is for:
all documents (including but not limited to all emails, letters, notes and file notes etc) sent by the Inspector of the NACC to the National Anti-Corruption Commission on the 3rd of September 2024 requesting submissions on a range of specified matters.
We note that this is request is in the same terms as another request from you to the INACC that we are currently processing. Because we now have two requests in duplicate terms, we are seeking your agreement to withdraw the request that has been transferred from the NACC. Your request will still be processed in full if you agree to withdraw the duplicate.
We look forward to your response.
Kind regards,
Freedom of Information & Privacy
Attorney-General’s Department
I withdrew my September FOI application to the NACC as requested but I got what I wanted. Documented proof the NACC, Inspector of the NACC and the Attorney-General’s Department working together to quash my September FOI application to the NACC.
The Inspector of the NACC and the Attorney-General’s Department should never have known about my September FOI application to the NACC. And given it would only be a few pages they would have to give me there is no reason why they shouldn’t have complied with the FOI request.
Summary – The NACC is not independent of government
The FOI laws that allow one government department to transfer FOI requests to another government department, s 16(1)(b) of the Freedom of Information Act 1982, are there for when a member of the public or a journalist sends their FOI request to the wrong government department.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 1982 – SECT 16
Transfer of requests
(1) Where a request is made to an agency for access to a document and:
(b) the subject – matter of the document is more closely connected with the functions of another agency than with those of the agency to which the request is made;
the agency to which the request is made may, with the agreement of the other agency, transfer the request to the other agency.
The documents I requested are equally connected to both the NACC and Inspector of the NACC. It is a major abuse of process for the NACC to refuse to hand over the documents by colluding with the Inspector of the NACC and the Attorney-General’s Department to in effect quash my FOI request by transferring it.
The Inspector of the NACC had already asked for an extension of time for my September FOI request and the NACC would have known that, so they decided to transfer my September FOI request to them.
Attorney-General’s Department are the puppet master
The above are just my emails that show the NACC, the Inspector of the NACC and the Attorney-General’s Department working as a team to silence a journalist. It does not show many other emails, messages and phone calls they would have worked out their strategy to silence journalists and the public.
For a corrupt government trying to cover-up corruption having the FOI content from the NACC and Inspector of the NACC helps them control the narrative in the media. All that information is also very helpful for a corrupt government trying to protect a corrupt NACC.
All 3, the NACC, the Inspector of the NACC and the Attorney-General’s Department would know what they did with my September FOI request was dodgy, but they don’t care.
Government departments are very experienced at abusing FOI laws to conceal the truth from journalists and the public. And the FOI laws need to change so the NACC can’t abuse those laws again.
The NACC legislation is well-known for being scandalous because it has the clause that the NACC cannot have public hearings except in exceptional circumstances.
The NACC legislation should also now be well-known for being scandalous for the Attorney-General’s Department having “administrative support arrangements with the Office of the Inspector of the NACC”. Besides processing FOI applications, what else does the Attorney-General’s Department do for the Office of the Inspector of the NACC?
So much for the NACC and Inspector of the NACC being independent of government. It’s another government lie.
I’ll keep following up.
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This interference is terrible, a shocking overreach. Government departments are nowhere run by lawyers, the Boards
Dreyfus is just as evil as Porter, neither are or were trustworthy. Hard to differentiate between current government and the corrupt lying previous government, Albonese is basically Morrison operating under another umbrella but same principles.
This interference is terrible, a shocking overreach. Government departments are now run by lawyers. Foi teams are typically lawyers hired in large numbers under contract from external law firms costing millions yearly. Foi processing is now about lawyers blocking the release of information to protect the interests of the government. Any credibility afforded the Inspector’s investigation of the Nacc issues now in the toilet.
Australia is so poorly served by it’s Attorney Generals. Untrustworthy, corrupt?
The whole system is a sewage pit regardless of the Party .we have ample evidence that corruption is rife and systemic .We need a movement to kill off this system and install a whole new system
We have seen this happen in Europe where the people got together and fired the government and installed a Government with people who are doing the job.
As I’ve said before, the NACC(ered) is working exactly as it was designed to do. The whole thing was, and is a fake, designed to cover up corruption by politicians and senior bureaucrats.
Corruption breeds contempt. How can they be independent, when they are paid by the Grubberment?
The Government ARE The People/Taxpayers.
Mr Dreyfus’s and his little pal Albo must go never to return. They will, – like others take their place in the shame file of corrupt behaviour – dishonesty and the desire to cover their own immoral behaviour and dirty secrets.
They have not served the people but rather have served themselves alone.
The 2 party system is finished as it no longer- if ever- serves the people of Australia.
My initial reading of this article, has left me totally and utterly disgusted. These facts, if true, and I have no reason whatsoever to disbelieve them, genuinely assault my sense of fair play. Good work, KCA. I feel I might need to make further comment after reading the article again.
These revelations of collusion between the NACC, its Inspector, and the Attorney-General’s Department expose a disturbing reality: the supposed independence of Australia’s anti-corruption watchdog is a façade.
IMHO, It is a LIE!
The government’s manipulation of FOI requests undermines transparency and accountability, leaving citizens in the dark about crucial information, particularly regarding scandals like Robodebt. This orchestrated effort to suppress public inquiries reflects a profound mistrust of the very people these institutions are meant to serve.
Without urgent reform of FOI laws, the erosion of public trust will deepen, and the integrity of Australia’s governance will FOREVER remain compromised.
I am left with sheer disgust at what has been exposed.
Why set up a corruption commission if it refuses to accept corruption?
It took painstaking work to itemise where and how the Minister of Superannuation had lied and covered up details about the Trio Capital fraud. The action he took benefited the union managed super funds at the expense of harming their market-competitors – the self managed superannuation funds. Evidence was provided to the NACC about what actually happened, which can’t be found in the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry Report, or mentioned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission or the Australian Prudential Regulations Authority. Not even the media got a whiff of the corruption. All nicely presented to the NACC then only to receive a reply months later that it found no corruption. That makes me think the NACC was set up probably to defuse, waste time, and frustrate whistleblowers.
NACC is a total waste of Time, Money and Effort if it IS NOT INDEPENDENT of government.
It appears that even THIS government CAN’T BE TRUSTED to do the Right Thing.!
Let’s NOT Forget Robodebt.!
Dreyfus is a great disappointment.