[Peetwo]

Lead Balloon on the irrelevancy of the Commonwealth Ombudsman's office - 

Via the GlenB UP thread: https://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-a...st11322854

Lead Balloon

If you want some insight into the extent to which the Ombudsman’s office has been compromised, you might recall its 2017 report into Centrelink’s automated debt raising and recovery system (commonly known as ‘RoboDebt’). At today’s hearing of the RoboDebt Royal Commission, internal legal advices provided to the agency were tendered. Those advices were to the effect that it was not lawful to use ‘averaged’ ATO income information as the sole and conclusive basis on which to calculate and pursue debts. But that’s precisely what the ‘online compliance intervention’ system did (unless the victim was able to battle the inadequate Centrelink communications system – the first witness today described having to send a 71 page fax of bank statements, twice (you remember faxes?) after conversations with ‘someone’ in Centrelink, which faxes were then ‘lost’ by Centrelink).

The Ombudsman didn’t bother to ask whether Centrelink had sought and obtained legal advice about the lawfulness of the ‘online compliance intervention’ system. [But see my correction below.] The Ombudsman did say this in his report, though:

We asked DHS whether it had done modelling on how many debts were likely to be over-calculated as opposed to under-calculated. DHS advised no such modelling was done. In our view the risk of over-recovering debts from social security recipients should be the subject of more thorough research and analysis.

That’s some special genius, right there.

Maybe there should be some kind of government ‘watchdog’ with power to look into whether a government agency is pursuing powerless individuals for alleged debts that don’t exist. Let’s call that ‘watchdog’ the ‘Ombudsman’. And let’s appoint as ‘Ombudsman’ someone who understands that ‘over-recovering debts’ is a euphemism for taking money off people when they don’t actually owe it. After all, a drover’s dog knows that it’s unlawful and immoral to take money off people when they don’t actually owe it and hopefully there are candidates out there with the smarts and integrity of a drover’s dog.

Correction added 2 Nov 22: According to proceedings today at the Royal Commission, the Ombudsman did ask for legal advices about the use of 'averaged' income data as the sole basis for calculating and pursuing debts. There followed an internal Departmental discussion about whether to provide to the Ombudsman the late 2014 advice as well as a January 2017 advice that appeared to be inconsistent with the former, but the latter - according to the lawyer who provided the advice (today's witness) - was an answer to a different and specific and highly hypothetical scenario. The author of the 2017 advice did not know whether the 2014 advice - which had been 'second counselled' by the author of the 2017 advice, was ever given to the Ombudsman. I can't find any reference to that request or what the Ombudsman did about the response, in the Ombudsman's report. In any event, I stand by my overarching view that ‘over-recovering debts’ is a euphemism for taking money off people when they don’t actually owe it, and that should have rung alarm bells, long and loud, in the Ombudsman's Office.

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Sandy Reith

Watchdogs

LB has illustrated the woeful inadequacies of yet another of our myriad ‘independent’ government agencies.

Undoubtably we could enhance our government with a new and accountable means of investigating and overseeing the machinations of the mighty juggernaut that’s known as the Public Sector (once was the Public Service).

Here’s a suggestion, we vote for representatives who will pursue our particular concerns on our behalf. We could have them come together in a place of speaking together and call it Parliament. They would have to understand that they not only made law but they were also responsible to their individual constituents.

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Lead Balloon

In fairness, I should say that I’ve had considerable success in complaining to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s Office about bureaucrats who were labouring under the misconception that their compliance with the law was optional. Strong and effective action by the Ombudsman’s Office recalibrated the bureaucrats and I was consequently paid money to which I was entitled. But that was over two decades ago.

Since then the Commonwealth Ombudsman has also become:

- the Postal Industry Ombudsman

- the Overseas Students Ombudsman

- the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman, and

- the VET Student Loans Ombudsman.

You (Sandy) have identified elsewhere the annual budget of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. My view is that the budget would have to be ten times that in order for the Ombudsman to do, properly, all of the jobs the Commonwealth Ombudsman's Office is now supposed to do.

All of the phaffing around on Glen's matter indicate to me an organisation which is, at best, out of its depth. It's not that hard to work out what CASA knew - constructively if not actually - about APTA's legal relationship with and operational control of the people, premises and aircraft to be engaged in operations the subject of each application for a variation to APTA's AOC to cover those operations. As I've said before, that was (and remains) the very purpose of an AOC variation process.

MTF...P2