Public sector corruption watchdog finds Home Affairs senior executive misused position to benefit family

The public sector corruption watchdog has found a Home Affairs senior executive misused her position to benefit her sister and her sister’s fiancé.

According to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the public servant engaged in corruption on multiple occasions to help them acquire positions in the department.

While taking several actions to aid her sister’s fiancé in a transfer application to Home Affairs — including creating the job requisition, forging signatures, praising him to colleagues — she deliberately concealed the family relationship from others.

The official also provided interview questions to her sister in advance of a separate employment process.

The woman, who hasn’t been named publicly by the Commission but given the pseudonym “Joanne”, has resigned from the Australian Public Service.

However, the Commission claimed if she hadn’t left, it would have “recommended that her employment be terminated”.

Joanne had been working as the acting Assistant Secretary overseeing the Global Initiatives Branch at the time and had been with the Australian Public Service since 2011.

Her sister had been employed with the Australian Institute of Sport and sister’s fiancé was employed through the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Home Affairs first became aware of the corruption issue on December 19, 2023 — less than a month before the department’s secretary made a mandatory referral to the watchdog on January 12.

Five days later, National Anti-Corruption Commissioner Paul Brereton decided to investigate.

In a statement issued by Mr Brereton on Monday alongside the official investigation report, he said Joanne’s actions involved “deception”, “nepotism”, and “corrupt behaviours”.

“The Commission found the conduct was serious because of the seniority of the public official, the deception involved and the significant benefits of securing a public service role and systemic because the behaviours were repeated,” the statement said.

“And because nepotism, cronyism and undeclared conflicts of interest in APS recruitment are an area of widespread concern.”

Commissioner Brereton said the body has received “many referrals” about recruitment and promotion in the Australian Public Service.

“It reinforces the need for strong corruption prevention measures – including mandatory conflict of interest disclosures in all recruitment processes, and prevention of improper disclosures of official information,” he said.

During the watchdog’s investigation it combed through emails, Skype and Microsoft Teams messages, call logs, security clearances, and even the fiancé’s work output during a work trip to Italy.

It also went through Joanne’s work and personal mobile phones and uncovered a series of WhatsApp messages between the three family members.