Thread by @SquigglyRick

New thread for Hearing Block 3, Day 6 witnesses after Musolino.

This is former Alan Tudge senior media adviser Rachelle Miller up now.

Miller says she had no access to her emails or departmental documents when she prepared her statement. It is based on her recollection,

But since then, she has seen some documents from dept.

Miller began as a media adviser in early 2010 with Dan Tehan. Began with Tudge in August 2016 until 28 November 2017.

Rachelle Miller had Sarah Bland as an assistant media adviser during part of her time in Canberra with Tudge's office.

"There was a huge focus on media and it was made very clear to me that he intended to prioritise media," Miller says.

George Brandis, for example, didn't want to do a lot of media. "He didn't really feel the need to constantly go out and promote himself in the media."

Alan "took a completely different approach."

Can vouch for that.

Miller: "They used to call him [Tudge] a bit of a media tart."

Miller says Christian Porter, who was social services minister and her minister (Human Services) Alan Tudge: "They were very close."

"Traditionally the senior minister would have done most of the media opportunities and particularly in the case of DHS." But 50:50 for them.

Miller: "But there were cases were Tudge was doing media that perhaps Porter should have been doing. He was very, very ambitious about doing media."

Miller: "I recall we had a discussion about that ambition of his to promote himself in the media and to use that relationship with cabinet ministers he already had to have him join them in cabinet."

Re: her media strategy, Miller says they were particularly keen to get stuff in the right wind media "because that is where the votes were."

Miller says the Secretary of DHS Kathryn Campbell at the time and Alan Tudge both "seemed to really agree on the direction they wanted to take in terms of welfare reform."

Miller is asked about the daily media report which was provided to the Min Office (MO) by the Department.

"That would be a collation of the relevant media clips, copy of an article or radio transcript, relevant to the portfolio."

Minister would read these clips, perhaps, but in any case Miller would send him a message with the key issues. She would print out the Morning Note which came from the Prime Minister's Office which was more broad and across government and Tudge was more focused on that.

Greggery takes Miller to the topic of media releases or media statements. Journo requests were almost always passed on to Tudge himself, she says. This was the reactive stuff, but she says Tudge was adamant about getting out of that cycle and setting their own media narrative.

Miller: "The Minister was very instructive over that [efforts to go into the Dept and find proactive media stories about which they could do media]."

Did Min closely review media statements? "Yes, extensively, to the enth degree."

Miller: "I can recall staying up to 1 o'clock in the morning on the Gold Coast reviewing a media release for the eighth or ninth time. Which, I might add, was counterproductive anyway because most journalists don't read them."

Amen.

Now to when Miller first became aware of Robodebt. She said to Bevan Hannan, who ran media for DHS and said "There's a good story here. The estimates from the pilot of the dollars we were recouping... I remember being quite stunned by the figure."

Miller: "What I was told was it had been in pilot, the pilot was successful and they were now looking to ramp up the Scheme."

Miller asked Hannan to check everything was accurate, she says Tudge was also keen to make sure.

Miller says Hannan came back and said everything was OK because the pilot was a success. She says he would have been given this assurance from the policy people.

Miller thinks the first media story about the Scheme was November 2016 or thereabouts, in The Australian. Later that year, however, there was a "proliferation" of negative media stories "predominantly in the leftwing media."

Commish: "Where does the ABC fit in all this?"

Miller: "I would have said they were in the leftwind media camp."

Commissioner: "Just checking."

That gave me a chuckle.

Miller, re: people saying they had been given debts: "We tended to believe these were people who were having a bit of a whinge about having to repay a debt or being caught out."

Tudge did media with A Current Affair in December 2016 and Triple J Hack.

Miller: "A Current Affair interview was very much focused on, you know, sending a clear message to people that we are cracking down on welfare fraud."

Tudge goes on leave until late January. Porter acts.

Sorry, Porter acts in Tudges' position. What I wrote made it sound like Porter did something about the issue lol

Greggery: "You said the media demand was very high while the Minister was on leave, the media was generally adverse, heavily critical. Would you say that by January 2017... the media situation was in crisis mode?"

Miller "Yes, but I didn't think it was not able to be shut down."

Miller: "He [the Minister, Tudge] was very firm with me that I needed to shut this story down. The Minister became very quickly aware that the Prime Minister was unhappy. At the time, we were trying to decline as many media opportunities as we could."

Miller: "That media strategy that I developed was very comprehensive and that involved placing stories in more friendly media about how the Coalition was actually catching people who were cheating the welfare system."

Miller: "We were getting feedback from the Prime Minister's office that this was playing quite well in the marginal seats, Western Sydney, that sort of thing."

This "counter-narrative" in the crisis strategy that Miller developed included pushing the message that they were "tracking down debts from the period when Labor was in Government that were not detected because they did not take the integrity of the welfare system seriously."

Greggery asks about the history of data-matching.

Miller: "The difference was we were able to do it much faster. The whole idea was that this was an automated system and that is what was new about it. Obviously Ministers will re-badge programs that already exist."

Greggery asks about using "real life examples."

Miller: "The Minister was very adamant with me that I needed to hunt down as many case studies as I could, he was really very forceful about obtaining these."

He wanted to dismiss the stories that he thought were gussied up.

Miller: "He wanted to put the attention back on the Labor Party and say 'what, you would let these guys go, you would happily give them taxpayer money that they were not entitled to'."

Miller spoke to Bevan Hannan, head of media at DHS etc

Given how unedifying some of this evidence is for Miller, I am quite impressed with how frank she is being.

What does Miller recall about the engagement of PwC?

Miller: "There was discussion in the office about engaging PwC to look at some of the technical issues that may have been occurring. I recall saying that would be a good idea, it's a really good holding line for a Minister."

Miller: "It means, effectively, that they can not answer journalists' questions."

You see it all the time, she says. Ain't that the truth.

Greggery: "What do you recall of the topic of releasing personal information from persons with whom Centrelink dealt to media?"

Miller: "So we didn't think of doing that at all ever."

This is early on. But then the author of an SMH/Age piece gets in touch.

This journo sees this case in the media and says the case is "disgraceful" and "how is it the Minister can let this happen on your watch and he said I am going to write another piece about this." But he asks: can you assure me that what the author has written is correct?

Miller talks to the DHS, they say well actually you CAN release very limited details about a person to "correct the record."

"The Minister requested the file of every single person who had appeared in the media."

The file was already in the MO

Miller recalls Tudge being adamant they wanted people to think twice about going to the media with "false" information because if it's not true "we will correct the record."

"I wasn't too worried about [the criticism from the leftwing media]. That didn't surprise me at all."

But she was worried, she says, that what they were doing was legal.

Miller says of the one case, where they released details "and the publicity that it got" sent the message that the Govt would push back.

In the case of the person whose name they released, but in other cases too, Miller says there was "formal, signed legal advice." The Minister "requested that specifically."

Miller: "It wasn't usual practice at that stage for Ministers in that portfolio to do that. It was a risk. There weren't, to my knowledge, previous cases of people using that particular loophole."

In retrospect, Miller says it is "not something I would do again."

Miller says it was unethical that some leftwing journalists were not even going to them for comment.

"The usual relationships I would have with journalists were not working, and this particular group were being quite vindictive, being very biased and unbalanced."

Of the name they did release, Miller says: "I did trust the reporter who was going to write that up, that rebuttal of ours, he was reputable, very reputable."

Greggery asks about the issue of inaccurate or incorrect debts and whether that came up to the MO. It did. When, first?

Miller: "Well, that would have been in late December when I was sitting with a DLO who was on the phone to a customer."

Miller: "And she said to me 'it looks like her income has been averaged'. And it appeared to me a very - what would I say - crude way of identifying if a person had a debt."

Miller says she told Tudge about this. "The Minister was well aware that this was happening."

A staffer in then Minister Darren Chester's office told Miller in a bathroom she needed to speak with her because SHE had been given a debt.

Miller: "So, that alarmed me a little bit because if a ministerial adviser... had only been able to work out her debt from having kept very accurate records, I did start to wonder how the bulk of people would."

Debt was nixed, Tudge thought it was a sign the system was working.

Miller: "I did try to seek assurances from the policy issue but he was very firm that 'hey, this isn't your job'."

Policy adviser was Mark Wood.

Miller: "Kathryn Campbell was there on a regular basis [in January 2017 at the Minister's office]. She was set up in the boardroom, almost permanently, I think. Malisa Golightly, I can't recall other specific people... Craig Storen."

Prime Minister (Turnbull) asked Tudge to return from leave immediately to deal with the Robodebt "crisis."

Miller is asked about what she recalls about people committing suicide after receiving debt letters.

Miller: "All of those cases were looked into by the Minister. Some of those cases were Robodebt cases and some weren't. It wasn't exactly clear... some of the articles were very misleading and kind of suggesting that the person had committed suicide because of the debt notice."

Miller: "But then there were other articles where family members had said 'I believe that my brother, sister, whatever, suicided because of the debt notice they received. Those reports were terrible and really tragic and upsetting."

Miller: "The details of those cases were very closely kept between the Minister and the Minister's policy adviser and chief of staff. From memory, I only saw bits and pieces relating to the media side of it."

Did you talk to DHS about r'ship between suicides and debt notices? No

Miller: "We understood that a lot of recipients of welfare payments are, you know, vulnerable people, they are people with perhaps pre-existing conditions that we had sent out debt notices to."

Miller: "There was a distinct lack of empathy and putting yourself in a person's shoes, a person who was receiving a Centrelink debt notice. It just didn't happen because that is the culture of the place. That is something I am hoping that this Commission addresses."

Miller: "Because you think working in Human Services that the first person you think about is the recipient but that was not the case throughout the government, the Coalition government."

What a moment on which to take lunch. Back at 2pm AEST / 3pm daylight.

Back from lunch now, still with Rachelle Miller. Now to the matter of Rhys Cauzzo whose story was told in The Saturday Paper.

Miller recalls the inquiry came in before publication. Being shown the email trail of the inquiry that came up 16 Feb 2017 via the Department.

The article was published that Saturday (clue is in the title) and it is fair to say the Department / MO are not happy about it. Greggery notes it was a "fairly critical" response of both the journalist and the content.

Miller: "My mindset was that this was an extremely unbalanced piece of reporting. Even in the headline. The fact that he clearly had a debt, it was definitely a debt that Centrelink had been pursuing for some time, there was no discrepancy about it. The debt stood."

Miller: "It was not surprising that The Saturday Paper would report in that way. Every Saturday there was a hit job on the Coalition."

A little context here, but if you read the piece in question it was in the context of critical media about Robodebt but it never said he was a Robodebt case. The headline: "Centrelink debt collection pushed him over the edge." Which is kind of Still A Problem.

Miller being shown email trail a week after this piece, with serious discussions in the MO about whether they should release his details but chief of staff says "it's a bad look to be discussing the wrongdoing of a person who committed suicide."

AWWWWW

Miller reached out herself to the Royal Commission to make a submission. "I feel some responsibility" for the stress and health issues caused by Robodebt. "We must ensure we learn from this significant failure of public policy," she says in her statement.

18 October 2016 email from Miller to DHS media director Bevan Hannan titled "debt and compliance media opportunities." This is where they discuss the savings target of $500m "we may be just short".

November 2016 email notes Minister requested redrafting of media release to underscore the "success of the Online Compliance Intervention" system. On 23 November, the DHS media people send the revised draft "that promotes the department's new online compliance system."

lol, Tudge wanted to put the media release out once a milestone target for the Robodebt scheme had been reached but there was a miscommunication with the Department and it had already been reached

This release talks about a $4 billion saving over four years.

Miller emails Tudge before midnight 4 December 2016: "Q&As, online debt and compliance tool." Lots of talking points about how great the OCI is.

Who drafted those? "They would have originated from the Department."

Miller would go through what the Dept sent, edit it and cut down the lines so they were "in a format that Minister Tudge would want." Department was not able to put political language in the words, so Miller would add that if required.

Greggery asks if the extent of the understanding about the detail of the scheme: "Was that understanding quite limited?"

Miller: "It was for me as a media adviser, but it shouldn't have been for our policy adviser. Particularly one that is getting attention in the media."

Now to the article in The Australian by Sarah Martin: "Welfare debt squad hunts for $4bn." This is the article Miller referred to as being the first. "I gave her the media release so she could run it as an exclusive, she got what we call a drop."

Miller notes, correctly, that this was a common practice. You offer a media release exclusively, they run the story and then you do media and radio etc on the back of that into the next day.

Now on to media inquiry from The Guardian's @knausc, a week after the story in The Oz.

It's pronounced Norse, for the record! I know this because every time I see him I say Hercules Morse as Big as a Knaus

Miller confirms Tudge cleared every single line that was ever attributed to him.

Greggery: "That is a very high degree of involvement." Especially when there were lots of media inquiries, Miller says.

This response to @knausc said "The Department is confident the online compliance system and associated checking process with customers, is producing correct debt notices."

@knausc 21 December 2016 interview with Tudge on Triple J Hack Summer where he seems to not be aware of a 10 per cent recovery fee under Robodebt. Twitter won't let me take Knaus' tweet handle off this tweet I am sorry!

My Tweetdeck has shat itself

OK it was my Internet.

Missed a bit there, Tudge saying he wants notes from policy adviser ASAP because PM "texting asking me when I am back."

7 January 2017 talking points for Tudge.

"Centrelink is simply doing what has been done for years, including under the former Labor Government. In fact, Bill Shorten introduced part of this data-matching back in 2011."

This is what we have heard about previously in evidence from Mark Withnell where the data-matching was used prospectively to hopefully stop debts being incurred. But then DHS realised they could actually go back in time...

In these talking points: "It is only in the absence of any other information that income is averaged over a full year."

Now, on the stand, Miller says: "I recognise that it is... not very accurate."

Greggery brings up the Plibersek/Shorten media release from 2011: "New data-matching to recover millions in welfare debts." No doubt you've seen it floating around! Back to email from Tudge to CoS: "PM sent me this one and has the clearest critique." It's an SMH article.

This indicates Turnbull was reading these stories closely and, at the very least, had concerns.

This is the article from our friend @1petermartin. Martin wrote: "The humans charged with applying the law didn't issue debt notices unless they had evidence debts existed. To do so without evidence would be to break the law."

Greggery: "It was the critique of someone who might know what was going on."

Miller: "And the PM liked reading the SMH."

Commissioner, loving this media education: "Where was the SMH in your [spectrum]?"

Miller: "Leftwing."

Commish: "Leftwing!"

Greggery asks Miller what involvement she had in meetings between Minister and the Secretary or others? No involvement. "I don't recall being called into any of those meetings," Miller said.

The Department approach to this Peter Martin article was, in Greggery's words, "to refute it out of hand."

Miller writes, using DHS talking points: "I think the heat is out of the issue...Peter Martin has been factually incorrect in both of his articles."

He was bang on.

There was a draft oped, 11 January 2017, Alan Tudge says: "I don't think this is strong enough. Thoughts?"

Miller: "Alan was fairly reluctant to let Minister Porter take all of the media glory."

DHS Bevan Hannan to Malisa Golightly, Kathryn Campbell etc

"A quick update on the likely approach from the Minister's office over the next week."

"News Corp isn't interested in the line being run by left-leaning media, but is keen on alternative view."

Greggery asks if Miller would describe all of this to-and-fro between DHS and MO as a "comprehensive and coordinated defence of the Robodebt scheme so that it might continue."

Miller: "Yes, absolutely."

26 January 2017, also in The Oz:

"Debt scare backfires on Labor" by Simon Benson.

Miller: "That was an article we liked."

Greggery: "You worked with them and provided them the information for the story to be written in a way that the Minister liked."

Miller: "Yes, and Simon Benson was very good at doing that."

Discussing meeting between Tudge and ACOSS.

Letter from ACOSS to Tudge: "In light of the very serious allegations [Centrelionk whistleblower] released today by GeUp!"

Miller: "We pretended not to noticed or spend much time on anything GetUp! said."

Miller: "It wouldn't be uncommon for ACOSS to put that in writing because it was a common strategy to put it in a letter to the Minister and then release it to media at the same time."

Email from Tudge to Miller, attached Ombo press release: "Government Welcomes Ombudsman's Report on Online Compliance System." Tudge thought the report was "quite powerful", Miller says, because it gave him a stronger defence.

That's Greggery done with Miller. Min Guo, Miller's counsel, cross-examining her now.

21 Feb 2017 email chain. Tudge to Miller: "What are the lines re: mental health and debt?"

Miller responds: "Temporary waiver from repaying the debt."

26 Feb 2017, not quite a week later, was when Miller called The Saturday Paper's reporting 'disgraceful'. And was this why, essentially, because of this "temporary waiver of repaying a debt" line for Centrelink recipients who had told agency of their mental health concerns.

I really didn't quite follow that, which you can probably tell.

Miller's counsel Guo will likely be given leave tomorrow to cross-examine Alan Tudge. Gonna be a Long day.

5 min break

And look who we have here.

Hank Jongen.

General Manager, Department of Human Services. Been with DHS since 1973.

Jongen email, Greggery notes "perhaps tongue in cheek" from Cathy Sear to Kathryn Campbell: "Hank Jongen featured in more than 500 media items... Mr Jongen successfully neutralised 133 [media] items, many of which were high impact, key national TV, radio and print media."

Greggery: "Undoubtedly, January 2017 was a very busy time for you."

He notes he was also dealing with changes to the pension assets test. "The age pension population is perhaps the most volatile group of customers."

Commissioner: "This may be too much information."

It was.

Greggery: "What about the Robodebt program, surely you had a vulnerable population who was expressing enormous amounts of concern?"

That was also the case, Jongen says.

Jongen noted that the usual hierarchy for media approvals "was strictly observed" when Malisa Golightly was deputy secretary "in which instance she required that virtually all media material be cleared through her."

Jongen notes in his statement that "as far as possible I tried to avoid the topic of the Robodebt scheme. That was because it became an increasingly political issue and issues of political significance made my job more difficult."

Jongen, statement: "I did not seek any changes to media statements due to a concern regarding the political nature of comments."

He says now that once he became aware of Robodebt significance (escalation from 20,000 cases a year to 20k per fortnight)

... he just assumed this was all those previously 'undiscovered' people who had not declared income correctly and also he knew from past experience that averaging had been used in limited circumstances.

First thing Jongen sought to do was to explain that the debt letter was not a debt notice "it was a discrepancy... and that they should not ignore the letter."

Jongen: "I felt it was really important in that customer advocacy role to focus on those elements, rather than trying to justify the program."

Jongen: "I specifically recall, as a last resort, averaging could be used. It is quite possible that at some point I may have actually used averaging but I can't recall one." He's going back many years to his work in pensions and other payments.

But this averaging was 'rare'. So, Greggery asks: "When did it become obvious to you that this was a real difference in how averaging was used." At least I think he asked that, but I didn't even hear a response.

It's the Late Afternoon Rick Morton Brain Lottery

Jongen "bumped into Malisa Golightly in a corridor" and "I thought it would be useful to engage her in a friendly way about my concerns."

Jongen says he asked her if the debt letters had been focus tested, it didn't have a phone number "I thought it was decidedly unhelpful."

It became a very heated discussion. She told me that the program had been pilot tested, that it was Business As Usual and "thirdly, that it was none of my business."

Greggery asks if, following that exchange with Ms Golightly, did you take it further to the Secretary, Kathryn Campbell?

Jongen: "I decided not to. I was aware there were other people within the organisation with specific responsibilities and they were starting to look at that."

Greggery: "The second stage of the info that you emphasise was communicated by you in terms of your customer focus was that it was very important to respond to the discrepancy letter otherwise difficulties might arise."

That is, he understood this info would create a debt.

Greggery: "The questions which were raised in the media were not just about the process for the recipient, they concerned underlying questions about fairness and legality, that is, how debts were raised."

When involved in statements that asserted scheme lawful, did you check?

Jongen: "It was expert advice that I was given that the Scheme was legal. Not that I applied myself to the legality to any great extent because I had accepted from the very beginning that it was legal and legitimate."

Jongen: "Bearing in mind every statement that was attributed to me was signed off by counsel and the deputy secretary."

And Kathryn Campbell was involved "on some occasions" in clearing the media message.

Media stories 19 January 2017 which attributed "statements of fact to a whistleblower." Was Campbell involved?

Jongen: "What I do recall is being told by the media officer that the Secretary had agreed to the response."

Greggery asks Jongen if he recalls there appeared to be "a tendency in Departmental media releases , attributed to you or not, to diminish the critical point about how debts would be calculated by resort to averaging f people did not engage?"

Simply can't recall.

Greggery: "Would you agree with me that the averaging step was the one of critical significance as the reason why people SHOULD engage?"

Jongen: "Yes."

Then: "I have to say that my overwhelming desire was to ensure customers avoided getting themselves into trouble."

Well then, a tendency in media statement from the department to remove from statements the VERY INFORMATION that would indicate to customers Centrelink might come up with a debt even if they correctly reported their income is probably counterproductive, Hank.

I tuned out a little bit because I have the phrase "THOMAS THE HANK ENGINE" stuck in my head but it's not really turning into a fully formed bit so I just shut down

Jongen shown an Aug 2017 media forward plan. These were personally signed off on by Secretary Kathryn Campbell. No idea what the fuck "citizen-centric tactics" but the brief for the Sec calls for these to be used by the Department so "external stakeholders are properly engaged."

Commissioner: "Did you have much to do with the Chief Citizen Experience Officer?"

Jongen: "No I didn't."

Commissioner: "Were there lots of citizen experience officers? Why was this one chief?"

Jongen has no idea

Heyo we get @knausc back again (Knaus rhymes with Hercules Morse as Big as a Horse) raising the Terry Carney article and asking for a DHS response.

"I was hoping for a response by 11am tomorrow." Always so polite, our Chris.

Literally had to run because my phone rang for a radio interview with ABC Melbourne I thought was at 5.20pm my time but which was in fact a few minutes ago. Back now!

Nice to come back to Commissioner saying: "Isn't it a bit misleading suggesting 'nothing to see here'?"

Jongen: "Look, I have to concede a loose form of words there."

Loose Unit Alert

Comm: "Look, there was a reason you chose as a person: nice deep voice, comforting presence, sense of assurance, and so you were an important part of continuing this system. Did it not concern you that there were evidently all these problems and you were being used to sell it?"

Jongen: "I don't see myself as a salesman, quite frankly."

Commissioner: "Do you think the Department didn't see you as a salesman?"

That may be a perception held by some people, he says.

Jongen is excused.

Bevan Hannan, former acting National Manager, Customer and Media
Engagement for Department of Human Services is last witness today

you can tell I copied that from the witness list PDF like a lazy fuck

Hank shanked by Commissioner

Hank flanked, shanked

Anyway, Bevan Hannan says he was "quite upset" watching earlier Royal Commission evidence from last year because it became evident to him that people knew that aspects of the Robodebt scheme were unlawful. "There was an opportunity in January 2017 to put a stop to it."

Hannan: "As a public servant, I'm livid there was an opportunity to stop it. It's a disgrace."

Hannan: "There was an opportunity in January 2017 for cards to be put on the table by the Department about this and that didn't happen."

Hannan notes the "regimented" media clearance process which was, he says, put in place by then Secretary Kathryn Campbell. "Ms Campbell's clear expectation was that any cleared media content be approved by the responsible deputy secretary."

Hannan: "Ultimately it was the deputy secretary Malisa Golightly who signed off on everything. But in those early days there were a number of executive level staff." Scott Britton, Karen Harfield, Craig Storen etc

Hannan: "There were a good dozen things that people were shooting holes in and that they were complaining about." Not just averaging.

He mentions an "off the cuff" email from Kathryn Campbell re: an ACOSS media interview where she indicated the ACOSS point was "quite valid."

Hannan said she went on to say "that we also have to be mindful that we ensure things remain lawful." Words to that effect. "So for me the Secretary wouldn't have said that if she didn't think it was lawful."

Hannan drops the 2016 election as a key point because the Coalition costing document indicated it was going to make up for an extra $1.2bn in promises by offsetting another round of welfare compliance measures. "And so that was over $2bn in that costing document."

Hannan: "And the expectation was that these savings were going to help chase down the bottom line, the surplus for the government. You know, it was not unlike a TAB from my point of view. A TAB doesn't make money from high-rollers, it makes money from the little guy."

Hannan said in the lead up to 2016 and into 2017 "we were being assured everything was working." But it wasn't. Hannan says the "bullish" media activity from Tudge put a "big target on things."

A Current Affair interview was particularly bad, Hannan says, because he spoke about "tracking people down" and how they could end up in prison which had nothing to do with compliance. That was welfare fraud. But this put a target on things "and the Minister became the hunted."

Weirdly, not sure I love the media guy speaking in media grabs on the stand. It smacks of diminishment.

Hannan said the difference between pension asset test changes and Robodebt were "chalk and cheese."

"You had one that was handled smoothly and another one that imploded."

One group is politically more 'worthy' so take a guess!

Greggery: "You say... that you now know from what's happened over the last few years and indeed in this Commission that there was a secret about the existence of knowledge that the scheme was unlawful."

Hannan: "Yeah look, there was some reticence to accept there was a problem."

Hannan, re Malisa Golightly: "She didn't want to believe what was in the press. She wanted the system to be working but... she formed the view it was some sort of campaign."

Hannan: "In the end she asked for the advice [2 Jan 2017] and this was not something that could be denied anymore."

But did the question of lawfulness ever come up between Golightly and Hannan?

"I don't think anyone at that stage, perhaps a journalist, had suggested it."

Greggery reads: "You describe here 'this is invaluable content for journalists sharing the silly season when story angles are lean'. Are you talking here about the down time between Christmas and mid-to-late January?"

Yes, Hannan says.

He says Golightly was frustrated because the case studies being reported in the media were "all coming off social media." That would be from Asher Wolf's organising and other pickup. That's what sustained this thing.

Greggery asks what degree of involvement Ms [Kathryn] Campbell had in the process relating to media in response. Hannan says: "She was involved in particular media inquiries and there were certain things she personally wanted to review before they went out."

Hannan thinks there were a "handful" of times in January when Campbell surfed in over the top of her deputy secretary to approve and clear responses.

Hannan, pressed on his view that there was no reason to continue with this scheme in January 2017. So much work was being done to deal with 'fixes' to the system. "I'm sure they could have found some time to look at advice that it was unlawful."

Hannan: "If she [Kathryn Campbell] knew that it was unlawful there is no way in my view she would have let that proceed. She would have had to have done something about it."

And we are done for the day.