'Farcical': Eric Abetz defends John Lloyd after code of conduct finding
Liberal senator Eric Abetz has defended former public service commissioner John Lloyd, and blasted an inquiry that found he breached a code of conduct governing federal officials as "farcical".
Senator Abetz, who was the minister overseeing the public service when Mr Lloyd was appointed to his role, said the inquiry process run by the office investigating allegations of misconduct by the public service commission head lacked procedural fairness.
Senator Eric Abetz has defended retired public service commissioner John Lloyd. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
He questioned merit protection commissioner Linda Waugh's finding that Mr Lloyd breached the Australian Public Service code of conduct by emailing research completed by his agency to a right wing think tank.
“It is entirely unremarkable for information to be shared with third parties. Indeed, during my time as a minister there was information and data provided by my department to trade unions that was not placed on the public record," Senator Abetz said.
Sharing information with academics, media and other groups was also commonplace, he said.
“This suggested notion that it is now inappropriate to share information with third parties that is produced by government could have deep ramifications, including for consulting with stakeholders on policy.”
He also denounced the leaking of Ms Waugh's findings and said he was not "proactively" contacted during the investigation, despite being the minister for employment when Mr Lloyd sent the email to the Institute of Public Affairs.
Senator Abetz said he told the merit protection commissioner he had asked the public service commission to conduct the analysis of enterprise agreements covering the federal bureacuracy, the document Mr Lloyd later emailed to IPA head John Roskam.
“The whole process around this matter has been farcical and clearly lacked both procedural fairness and robustness at almost every step of the way," he said.
Ms Waugh said she gave her report to the Senate president and House of Representatives speaker but otherwise declined to comment.
Mr Lloyd, a member of the IPA and former director of its work reform and productivity unit, has denied wrongdoing.
Former public service commissioner John Lloyd was investigated over a code of conduct breach. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer
He again declined to comment on Thursday, however in an interview with The Australian on Wednesday he described the leaking of the findings as "reprehensible" and similarly called the process of the investigation farcical. He would not speak about the findings until they were tabled in federal parliament.
Community and Public Sector Union national secretary Nadine Flood said that while Mr Lloyd's job was to uphold and enforce integrity across the APS, he couldn’t uphold the code of conduct himself.
"The hypocrisy is astounding," she said.
Ms Waugh found Mr Lloyd's actions failed to uphold his agency's good reputation and did not fulfil public service values requiring bureaucrats to "act in a way that models and promotes the highest standard of ethical behaviour."
However in a letter seen by Fairfax Media, Ms Waugh on Wednesday said Mr Lloyd's actions were not of "sufficient gravity" to require sanction. Mr Lloyd left his role leading the Australian Public Service Commission the same day.
She found Mr Lloyd was not driven by dishonesty or a lack of integrity, but a failure to recognise the "clear attendant risk" of his actions in emailing the IPA.
"It was clear that such action would likely be viewed by critics as a strategic and controversial initiative by Mr Lloyd to build a coalition of support for his views, and as a political action, if it were to become publicly known as it subsequently did," Ms Waugh said.
"There were alternative courses (e.g. publishing the document so that its existence and content was available to everyone or passing the request to another senior officer to deal with) available to Mr Lloyd to mitigate these risks, but Mr Lloyd did not choose to do this."
His term as commissioner was due to expire in December 2019, but he abruptly announced in June he would resign from his $706,000 a year job while denying the timing was influenced by a possible investigation.
The Australian Public Service Commission said then he had "for some time" considered departing before his term as commissioner ended, and Mr Lloyd later told senators he had felt it was time to resign after a long career.