Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 23:47 to 36:08
Discussion focuses on historical data management and the investigation into offshore transcription services for court records.
Topics: Privacy, Procurement
Speakers: David Pringle, Senator David Shoebridge, Unknown Speaker, Interjection
>> Um, oh, thanks, Chair. And, um, Mr. Pringle, thank you for setting out what you're doing in relation to um, particularly domestic violence and violence in the courts. Um, I worked in the family court as a judge's associate for a bit over two years in the mid 1990s and it was out of Paramata. And very soon after I joined, there was an appalling incident of violence where a mom was murdered outside the court at Paramea in 19 it was 1996, I believe. and um and the courts still had to deal with that violent man and his continued applications in relation to the children. I remember the distress it caused to the staff, the distress it caused obviously to anybody related to that, the poor children. Um and um I want to acknowledge what a difficult job it is um for the the teams in the courts when they're facing this often can seem to be relentless examples of of violence and try try and deal with it with empathy and principle and um and I just want um to let to acknowledge the the detail in which you went into that material and um how important it is.
Thank you, Senator, and appreciate your acknowledgement of that and and sorry that you had to go through that.
>> You do not have to be sorry for me. I think about the mom and the kids and the the other court staff and the families and um tragically that violence against women is not isolated in this country and your court is at the front line of it and I just want to acknowledge that can be an incredibly hard task for everybody.
>> Thank you, Senator.
can I um can I can I ask you some questions now about um there's been some revelations in the last week about data that appears to have been sent in a what was described at different points as a pilot program and otherwise um that was collected by old script from the then family court and sent overseas to India um in a period that um I do not know the duration of time but in or about 2012. Are you aware of that media reporting?
>> I am Senator. Yes.
>> Have you undertaken a review to determine what happened, what data happened and how the court dealt with
>> Uh we we certainly have started that process. Uh the difficulty that we have as we understand it now u back in that period of time the uh corporate services structure had not been set up at least not in 2012 to 2014. Um so we've gone about trying to find um the old records. This is over a decade ago. Uh it appears that what's happened is that we've got good access to some email accounts um and other ones we don't have almost any access to um at the moment. The reason for that is our understanding is unlike now um those email accounts once a staff member left u weren't retained for a very long period of time. So, we've got what I'd quite honestly describe as a bit of a patchy access to information from that period of time, but we certainly have done the best we can in the limited time available to review um what has happened [clears throat] there and happy to answer any questions.
>> All right. Did you approach the federal court and seek access to the documents they have related to the public interest
disclosure? So the federal court as as now in that corporate entity structure, the federal court listed entity, I should be clear, um has all the IT access and so it's through them that we've sought to access that historical material because we wouldn't have uh that material otherwise. Uh so that's [clears throat] that's been uh helpfully provided by by their team.
>> So do you have the the the PID the response to the PID the process that were followed in relation to the PID?
That again, Senator, is part of the difficulty. We've got uh parts of the story, if I can put it that way, of the paper trail, um but not all of it because it depended on who was dealing with certain aspects of the matter at any given time.
>> Well, Mr. Pringle, I could ask you 50 different questions about this and poke and prod, but why don't you tell me to the fullest extent possible what you
>> Absolutely. Um so for for the clarity the um the change and the lack of access issues to emails occurred um post 1 July 20166 when the machinery of government changes happened for the setup of that corporate structure. Um what we've been able to establish is that back in July 2012 a member of the public not Mr. C cut bush. A member of the public raised concerns with a family court as it was known then that Oscript uh may have been processing transcript work offshore. The family court then and we don't actually have access to that communication but then clearly prompted Oscript about that and asked what was going on and Oscript uh responded indicating that it had operated a pilot uh of transcription arrangements in India for about 7 months that that pilot primarily involved private work and that it had been discontinued. to the best of our knowledge and this is I've got to say with the strong caveat that it's only based on available records to date uh no none of the records establish that transcript work was processed offshore for our court as part of the pilot or that the family court had prior knowledge of this pilot or authorized it That's the first step in time. I'm happy to continue unless you have questions about that stage. Senator,
>> how how do you know that it was not authorized um by anybody in the family court as it
the nature of the communication, at least the ones that I've seen that come back from OSCript suggests very strongly to me that the wording of it uh that the uh the first time a family court's hearing about it is from Oscript after the Oscript was uh reached out to by the family court representative. So, uh again, I want to stress I don't have the initial inquiry communication because that's one of the email accounts that is difficult to access, but I've got the responding document. Uh and that's what suggests that there wasn't prior knowledge at the time, but I I can't put it any higher than that and because I don't have full access to the material at the time and there also has been a limited amount of time to digest this material since the story broke out.
I I I just one of the reasons why I ask about that is because one of the documents that I have and I assume you have access to which is the email of the 20th of October 2016.
>> Yes.
>> From Mr. Mat who was the deputy uh >> yes the deputy principal registar in the federal court running the pit >> um said amongst other things um I note that the that the delivery of these services by oscript is closely aligned with the family court's practices processes and procedures
>> yes so senator I think that that relates to a separate and second step so what I just outlined to you was a member of the public who raised an issue back in July 2012. Then [clears throat] if you're happy for me to proceed, I could clarify for you that um to the best of our our knowledge of the records at this stage in December 2014, so some uh two years or so later, uh Mr. Paul Cutbush, who's the one the subject of the ABC articles, um contacted the family court about possible offshore processing of transcript work. Um, and then there was this fairly lengthy period between 2014 and 2016, including the communication you're referring to, um, where there were inquiries, uh, and back and forth. Um, again, uh, at this stage at least, the records do not establish that the family court transcript work was processed offshore. Um, but I say that again with um, a limited amount of access to the material. It's also apparent that uh there was an ombbudsman investigation um in in and around that period because Mr. Cut Bush uh uh did uh communicate with the ombbitsman um and that was in around um May 2016 as far as we can tell and this is when the public interest disclosure or PID matters uh come to the four and are being dealt with by as you've previously quoted John Mat and others um communicating on that. Uh it's also um apparent um that uh Mr. Cutbush lodged similar complaints about all of this with both the listed entity at the time and the family court. Um that uh around October 2016 the deputy principal registister of the federal court allocated the complaints to the family uh that uh in around December 2016 um the family court uh made a decision on that uh to close those two related PID matters without further investigation. From what we can understand from the available material, this appears to have been principally because the alleged conduct either did not breach an express contractual requirement or if a technical breach had occurred was considered minor and did not amount to serious disclosable conduct for the
um did not breach an express contractual requirement may simply mean that there was no contractual prohibition on
>> yes I'd have to clarify that
>> that leaves open the possibility of potentially significant family court matters being offshored but in the absence of a contractual prohibition they simply shut the inquiry down but but you're not in a position to to answer that now
>> I don't don't feel I'm in a position to answer it but on the available information. Again, um what appears to be the case is that there isn't anything which establishes that that family court matters were offshored, so to speak. Uh but um I not having access to all of that information, it's it's not possible for me to say anything further on that.
>> One of the reasons why I think there is a very real necessity to look at this closely is because Mr. Cutbush wasn't just anybody. He was a former Oscript national manager.
>> That's correct.
>> And you would imagine he had significant knowledge of what was happening in Oscript.
>> I I would assume so, Senator. And I understand he had um a rather acronous relationship with with the company as well. Um the the um information is partly there, but I I I will be cautious in stating it any further than what able to summarize.
>> Have you sought the records from the
ombbitsman? Uh, no, not at this stage. It's fairly recent that this has happened. We're still actually digesting what information we have.
>> Well, what I might ask you to do given the time, Mr. Pringle, is if you could place on notice what you have, if there's any further material you can provide on notice. >> Yes. what avenues of investigation you have undertaken and to the extent you can provide the committee with the assistance what further avenues you intend to undertake um in order to determine this.
>> Yes. >> Yes.
>> And and can I just indicate this we have searched specifically for an ombudsman final report. There was some preliminary engagements >> um but we haven't been able to access a final report from the ombudsman.