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Former top public servant Kathryn Campbell has been suspended without pay from her $900,000-a-year job with the Defence Department less than a fortnight after the robo-debt royal commission made damning findings against her.
Campbell went on leave shortly before the royal commission made a range of scathing findings, including that she repeatedly failed to act when the scheme’s flaws and illegality became apparent.
Former top public servant Kathryn Campbell is the first senior scalp to be claimed following the robo-debt royal commission.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Senior government sources who cannot be named because they are not authorised to speak publicly said Campbell had been suspended without pay on July 10, three days after the royal commission delivered its findings.
Campbell served as secretary of the Department of Human Services between 2011 and 2017, the period in which the illegal income averaging scheme was introduced.
The royal commission found that Campbell kept the true nature of the income-averaging scheme secret when advising cabinet because she knew then-social services minister Scott Morrison wanted to pursue the program.
It also found Campbell deliberately instructed her own legal team to discontinue a request for legal advice on the scheme and that she shelved a damning $1 million audit by PwC into the welfare crackdown just as it was about to finish because she feared its contents would be damaging.
The Albanese government technically demoted Campbell last year from the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to a senior role within Defence advising on the AUKUS agreement.
More to come.
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