Saturday Paper journalist lashes publication’s ‘unethical’ defence of robodebt bureaucrat

An Australian Public Service Commission taskforce found that Renée Leon failed to ‘expeditiously’ inform her minister and colleagues of the solicitor general’s advice on the lawfulness of robodebt. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Saturday Paper’s senior reporter Rick Morton has publicly condemned his editors for publishing what he says is an “unethical” and “misleading” defence of one of the robodebt bureaucrats.

Christine Wallace, a columnist with the paper, wrote that she and many public service officials believed the robodebt findings against the “widely admired former secretary of the Department of Human Services, Renée Leon” were “unjust”.