Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 2:21:03 to 2:26:38
Discussion continues regarding the performance of the consultant ACCS, focusing on whether the department was provided with deceptive information about report citations and the subsequent corrigendum.
Topics: Procurement, Integrity
Speakers: Senator Fatima Payman, Mr David Mackay, Mr Jim Betts, Ms Sarah Vandenbroek, Senator Varun Ghosh
Senator, um as we've covered the Secretary uh wrote to the committee uh outlining the errors that we have identified in the report. Um what the correct uh references to be included in the report were. Um as the Secretary has noted a coragendum including those uh identified errors has been published alongside the report on the department's website. Um it would clearly be my expectation that reports that are provided don't contain errors. Um as the Secretary set out in his correspondence to the committee, um the Department has acted quickly to identify uh the errors and to publish or to arrange for the publication of the uh of the core agenda.
So but do you agree that this is lazy report writing?
Yeah, I I I I would expect that reports that are commissioned uh from suppliers to government don't contain errors. I would note that these uh corrected references, there's six of them in in part D of the report. Um this is a part that that relates to emerging um future technology and does not uh relate to anything that links through to the e-safety commissioner's uh regulatory guidance. So I I guess what I'm saying is I I regard these as minor errors rather than something that would change the substantive findings of the report on which the regulator has them relied.
No, I understand, but it just makes the public lose faith in the entire process if there are minor errors. Um I understand that you know I and I acknowledge that you've said that you know you guys did your best, but do you apologize to the committee for not picking up on those errors earlier?
If it helps close this matter down, then I'm happy to apologize because there were errors in a report supplied by a consultant. Total disclosure, I can't guarantee that they haven't been typos in other documents that I've been responsible for for in 38 years as public servant.
Thank you, Mr. Betts. Um with ACCS, um I note that the ATT contract required them to comply with Commonwealth Supplier Code of Conduct, which provides that suppliers must conduct their business with integrity by acting honestly, responsibly, transparently, consistently, and holding themselves accountable for their actions. Does the department believe ACCS has acted honestly?
I don't believe they intentionally put errors into the report, so I don't think there was any um intent to be dishonest or to do anything incorrect.
So they have been so they've acted honestly in your opinion.
They haven't acted deceptively, I think is the point.
Okay. So the department has no issue with ACCS telling the Guardian and KJR that no AI was used in the preparation of the report, which ACCS has admitted is not true. You have no issues with ACCS causing you to mislead this committee by providing you incorrect information about the citation errors? I'm just curious to see why there's a protection racket around ACCS.
Well, Mr. Mackay has described it as sloppy reporting. I've offered an apology to the committee to the extent that that's worthwhile. We're talking about six citations in technical footnotes related to future technology unrelated to the substance of the report, which were uh subsequently corrected. I've written to the committee, we've put a core agendum on our website. This isn't Watergate.
Has any action been taken against ACCS?
Uh no, we asked them to publish the Cory agenda. They hold responsibility for the website where the original report is, and they publish the Corey agendum alongside the report. That was the extent of what we asked for.
So a contractor can lie to the department and expect to suffer no particular consequences?
I wouldn't say that they lied to us when we met with them, the language that they used was unclear. Um what I took from that was that they were telling me that the site that the citations weren't broken at the time it was handed over. They have later clarified that language. Um it was a misunderstanding in the meeting between me and them because of the technical language that was used. So they may not have been clear in their language.
I don't think that's the same thing as lying to the department and withholding information is very synonymous with lying, but okay. Does the department still believe it is appropriate for internal investment? Final question. Does the depart uh department still believe it's appropriate for internal investigation to take place into giving of misleading evidence to a Senate committee? Um or uh is the department just hoping that something like this doesn't happen again, as Mr. Mackay mentioned earlier.
I'm satisfied that the department has taken all the reasonable steps proportionate to the scale of the error.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Senator Plumman. Senator Pocock.