The Coalition has demanded the government explain how the Tourism Australia holiday scandal was allowed to happen, after the federal corruption watchdog announced it was giving up on investigating the matter.
Crikey revealed in April that three Tourism Australia employees had been fired for using $137,441 of taxpayer funds for personal travel. The incident was discovered by Tourism Australia in October and the trio had paid the money back by December. On June 4, the agency told Senate estimates it couldn’t answer questions about the matter because it was being looked at by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
But on Tuesday, the NACC acknowledged it had dropped the case from consideration because “the matter had already been fully investigated, the employees terminated and the funds repaid”.
“There was nothing that the commission could now usefully add to the process,” a NACC spokesperson said in a statement to Crikey.
It can now be revealed the NACC dropped the case on June 5, just one day after Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison claimed immunity from questions based on “clear” advice from the watchdog to avoid disclosing information because “to do so may compromise current or potential investigations and prematurely impact the reputation of individuals”.
“After usual triage and assessment processes, the decision to take no further action was finalised and Tourism Australia was notified of it on June 5, 2024,” a NACC spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Nationals MP and Coalition trade spokesperson Kevin Hogan called for Trade Minister Don Farrell to explain himself.
“The minister was made aware that taxpayer dollars had been fraudulently spent by public servants in late 2023. There is now no anti-corruption investigation to hide behind. We need details about the embezzlement and how it has been handled,” Hogan said in a statement on Wednesday morning.
“Will this matter be referred to the Australian Federal Police? Will criminal charges [be] laid on the public servants responsible? It is incumbent on Minister Farrell to explain the details of this egregious matter to the Australian people.”
Barrister and prominent integrity advocate Geoffrey Watson told Crikey it was possible the matter could be referred to the AFP.
“[But] it seems to me as though it’s likely they won’t do anything. The fact that the money has been repaid, in a sense, takes the sting out of it. So any criminal proceeding probably could result in a conviction, and then an order [could be] made that the conviction not be recorded,” he said.
“Defendants of white-collar crime don’t tend to be punished very heavily, especially where there’s now no third party loss.”
The AFP told Crikey in April it was not aware of the matter. Crikey sent a question to the AFP on Tuesday as to whether this was still the case, but it went unanswered.
Watson said Tourism Australia may be able to claim it had done its duty to report by going to the NACC, even though the AFP was never contacted. He said it was “absolutely soul destroying” for him as an advocate for the establishment of the NACC to see it used as a way to avoid scrutiny, in effect becoming “an extra layer of protection for wrongdoers”.
“I’m starting to wonder if NACC is a good or a bad thing. This is just using advice to keep the lid on things. I thought it was going to be the opposite. And this is in conjunction with their ludicrous decision regarding robodebt”.
The NACC has faced criticism in the past week for its announcement it wouldn’t pursue the perpetrators of the robodebt scheme because it had been “fully explored by the robodebt royal commission and extensively discussed in its final report”, and because it was deemed unlikely the NACC would be able to “obtain significant new evidence”.
Minister Farrell was contacted for comment.
