While the Leppington Triangle airport land acquisition by the Department of Infrastructure was not exactly best practice administration, the way the department has managed to get itself in the clear over the scandal certainly is.
The department, under secretary Simon Atkinson, has cleverly used a flurry of reviews to disguise the fact that one of the worst scandals in pure public service administration of recent years — the Leppington Triangle sale had nothing to do with ministers or ministerial staff beyond the relevant minister being asked to sign off on it — has led to precisely no consequences for the bureaucrats who overpaid some Coalition donors for a parcel of land by a factor of 10.
The Australian Federal Police yesterday said it had closed its investigation of the matter, saying it “did not identify any evidence of criminal offending” in relation to bribery, conspiracy to defraud or abuse of public office.
The result isn’t surprising given the scandal always looked far more like a case of spectacular incompetence and industry capture rather than overt corruption.
But the AFP investigation was only the most formal of a variety of inquiries and reports into the scandal commissioned by Atkinson in the aftermath of the Australian National Audit Office’s extraordinary audit of the purchase.
Let’s not forget Atkinson tried to rope in the Department of Finance to share the blame for the debacle, only for secretary Rosemary Huxtable to pull him up in public.
Atkinson got Sententia Consulting to examine the way the deal was made — though, importantly, not whether it was value for money. That report (good luck finding it on Infrastructure’s website) concluded, in a statement of the obvious, that “the department did not undertake all reasonable steps to determine what a suitable cost would be for the government to acquire the property, to demonstrate that the price paid for the property represented an efficient, effective, economical and ethical use of public funds”, but that there was no “poor integrity, criminal activity or personal benefit for officers involved in the transaction”. They were just too eager to please the sellers.
Atkinson also got consultants KPMG to review the “culture and capability” of the relevant departmental areas. KPMG, one of the world’s biggest enablers of multinational tax avoidance and probably the most scandal-plagued of the big four consulting firms, certainly knows a thing or two about workplace cultures. It produced a “forward-looking” report on how the area responsible for the scandal, the now-vanished Western Sydney Unit, was overworked, lacked clear guidance had a “can do” culture.
Being cultural, of course, no one was specifically to blame for creating the problems that led to the scandal.
Atkinson also got consultant and former public servant Vivienne Thom to investigate the public servant responsible for the purchase. There was also an investigation by adviser Barbara Deegan of the lesser issue of the handling of conflicts of interest by people involved with the unit. Neither of those investigations will ever see the light of day.
Many of the public servants involved, including some of the most senior who were not responsible for the acquisition but oversaw the work of the unit have moved on. One of the persistent problems of holding anyone accountable in the public service is that invariably it’s not the actual perpetrators who end up fronting Senate estimates, but successors and replacements who can plausibly respond “I wasn’t in this position at the time” or “I’d have to take that on notice and seek advice” to probing questions.
What we’re left with from the flurry of reviews was that no one was really responsible for such an outrageous decision, it kind of just happened as a result of the WSU culture and inexperience on the part of public servants.
The closest we’ve got to an explanation for why taxpayers’ money was wasted on such a scale is that which appeared back when the auditor-general examined the whole sordid mess, and noted that the bureaucrats were worried that Leppington Pastoral Company was “a sophisticated and well-resourced entity” with “access to substantial resources including legal and property advisors”. So they overpaid.
That’s the enduring lesson that won’t have been lost on any other company dealing with the Commonwealth — threaten litigation and public servants will overpay you, thinking they’re saving money in the long run, when they’re simply giving the wealthy and influential a better deal than the rest of us could ever get.
Morrison’s government is more incompetent than was Billy McMahon’s and is more venal than was John Howard’s
It’s no small feat, is it Terry. Beating the worst at their own game.
The central focus of the investigation and of the report should be the straightforward one, who benefits(ed) and it should be answered in detail. At present, it appears we have a federal government that runs like a hick local council run by Nationals. Secondly, there should be a detailed outline of what needs to be done so this never happens again. That should includes clear lines of accountability for implementing those changes. Since this government doesn’t do accountability, it does deflection, distraction and deceit instead, we shouldn’t be holding our breath. Meanwhile any amount of men in shiny suits will making their way to Canberra with harbour bridges to sell.
In March this year, Head of Australian National Audit Office, Auditor Brian Boyd told a parliamentary committee that a second key person involved in the deal wasn’t being investigated.
Officials in the since Department abolished Western Sydney Unit regularly held “coffee shop meetings” with landowners, which concerned the auditors because there were no records of what was discussed. Mr Boyd said these meetings mostly related to Louise Waterhouse, sister-in-law of leading racehorse trainer Gai, despite the commonwealth not seeking to buy land from her.
Ms Waterhouse was lobbying for a road intersection to be moved to improve her land’s development potential. Her efforts – ultimately unsuccessful – have been canvassed in the ICAC inquiry into disgraced former state MP Daryl Maguire. (ICAC says hi Gladys and Daryl.)
Australian National Audit Office, Auditor Brian Boyd:
“It was almost at a personal level, some of the engagement, to the extent of even assisting the landholder to try and secure meetings with ministers,” Mr Boyd said….and many others that were scheduled via messages including “I could repay my debt with a bite” and “Are you coming to Sydney soon, if so I owe you lunch”. “These are not the actions you expect experienced commonwealth officials to be taking. “This shouldn’t have been something they [the department] needed to be told to be addressed…
One meeting, on October 17, 2016, was arranged with Ms Waterhouse at Aussies, the cafe in the secure area of Parliament House, and the conversation between her and the official indicated a separate meeting was scheduled with a Leppington Pastoral Company representative at the same cafe.
Asked whether the minister or any of his staff had attended, Mr Boyd replied: “That’s one of the troubles we have with no agenda, there’s no record of the meeting.”
Mr Boyd said there were also indications a bureaucrat had met at a Perich family home on November 27, 2014, but again there was no transparency about who had attended or what was discussed.
Department officials told the committee it was “not possible to actually quantify” how many of these “coffee shop meetings” had happened or how many bureaucrats were involved.
Ms Spence the department had put in new arrangements to make sure all its staff knew what were appropriate ways to meet or engage with stakeholders.
So you see AP7, Paul Fletcher’s Dept had no idea of what to do.
A revisit of the players can be found in the SMH March 10,2021.
Illuminating, thank you. Does sound like the goings on at Porpoise Spit. Not even a middle ranking public servant or council officer would believe this behaviour was ok, it is textbook poor behaviour.
It remains disgraceful that an amount this size could be signed off without high level approval. And if that was the case the approver would be formally accountable for being satisfied with the process before signing off. And if it turned out to have been a shambles the approver should be sanctioned for not detecting it. That’s why they are a senior official or minister.
Cut to the chase. The person in charge is culpable. Ie the minister.
remember – The buck stops here.
If not why do they claim they should be paid more than the employees.
This a massive scandal – pure and simple!! There has obviously been corruption and now it has been covered up at the highest levels. Yet another example of the lack of any sort of decent, moral leadership form the ‘happy clappy’ Prime Minister. At no stage did he say that there has been a mistake and that the Leppington Pastoral Company should just pay the money back! Yes sounds naive , but it would have been the ‘right thing to do’!! Morrison is a hypocritical scumbag!!!
He is probably one of the most dangerous man ever to stab his way to the top job
Sure the government does “accountability”, AP7. The Secretary (Kennedy) and Minister (Fletcher) who signed off on this fraudulent deal have both stated publicly that it’s not their problem, hence both have been promoted.
They should have got Eric Abetz on the job. He’s the one who is always on about the Commonwealth overspending on public servants’ salaries so, given that record, he should be a real terrier when it comes to getting value for the taxpayers’ money.
Only when the Labor Party is in power.
A terrible workplace culture overseen by several senior public service executives that ignored the extant policies and procedures – designed to prevent such incompetence in the first place. A very clear case of maladministration.
Yes it is, and it would be instructive to know how the senior executives were appointed. Were they perhaps chosen for their malleability in applying policies and procedures?
Malleability or male ability?
It was Howard who started politicising the public service. Up unitl his reign they were ‘neutral’ and gave frank and fearless advice. But he started appointing mates. This was slowed with Rudd, but he still followed the pattern after a while (i.e. he left Howard appointees in place until their terms were up rather than just cleaning them out. But once Abbott got in away anyone with any smell of Labor went, and that has continued in spades with Morrison. Following the trump handbook he now includes partisan judges and the works.
More colonisation by the corporate sector, less politicisation? Chris Jordan head of ATO, ex KPMG chair, frightenedbaby Treasurer, ex DoucheBank, Proudfoot (ANZ) and Hume (Douchebank) ex bankers, ex treasury head Fraser (UBS) – talk about LNP donors cutting out the middlemen – why not just parachute your own reps/lobbyists directly into Govt? Then there are Wilson and Patterson ex IPA operatives …
Kelly O’Dwyer NAB. She called the mere suggestion of a royal commission “reckless and ill-conceived” back in 2016. She has retained links to NAB via the bank’s sponsorship of Liberal fundraising events.
Arthur Sinodinos NAB, Goldman Sachs.
Littleproud Suncorp
Whish Wilson Merrill Lynch in New York, and Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong,
Turnbull Goldman Sachs, Macquqrie, Turnbull & Partners
Frydenberg Deutsch
Jane Hume National Australia Bank, Rothschild Australia, Deutsche Bank
Baird Deutsch, NAB
Bert van Manen financial planner
Cory Bernardi financial planner
Andrew Bragg. Bragg, formerly from the Commonwealth Bank,
Ta L, and let’s not forget Shipton ( Goldman Sachs) and ASIC chair Longo (Douchebank, 17 yrs)
Absolutely I have a file on Shipton as well
Mr Simon Atkinson, (ex Deputy Secretary to Treasury, ex Dept Defence, ex Cabinet Secretary, ex ministerial adviser) – one of the sleazy right wing fixers/enablers of the Coalition.
Atkinson is a Morrisin appointee so it should come as no surprise that he was eager to push his smelly actions and any accountability onto Rosemary Huxtable.
The Coalition love hating women; but Morrisn’s man Simon Atkinson’s attempt to smear Finance Dept Secretary Rosemary Huxtable ended up with his humiliation – well done Rosemary Huxtable!