Comcare is pissing your (taxpayer) money up the wall

I'll provide the setting for this article with this picture

"Legal error" is a polite term that the Court uses to describe lawbreaking. If you make an error of law, you are going against the law, A.K.A. breaking the law. Comcare has now admitted in writing to the Court that a Comcare delegate who is hiding their identity, is a lawbreaker. I have been saying this to Comcare for sometime now, but Comcare ignores me because the Statutory Oversight team are providing legal advice to Comcare delegates that it is ok for them to hide their identity, and they can proceed to break the law with zero accountability because the Statutory Oversight team covers for them as they engage in this unlawful behaviour. How is this an example of Commonwealth employees operating in good faith? Is hiding your identity while you literally (and purposefully) break the law, operating in good faith? It is not, these people are a disgrace and an embarrassment to the Australian Government.

What happened?

Comcare made a decision on my claim and it did not observe the required procedures enshrined in administrative law in doing so. Specifically, the Comcare delegate did not provide me with a right of reply and asserted a bunch of false facts when making their decision.

Procedural Fairness/Natural Justice

When the Government makes a decision, it is supposed to adhere to a set of principles called procedural fairness/natural justice. One part of natural justice is "the hearing rule" A.K.A "the right of reply".

The right of reply is the right to have your say to potentially correct the record before an adverse decision is made. In this case, the decision being made was a decision to suspend my compensation claim. What the Comcare delegate was required to do was put it to me that they were considering suspending my claim, the reasons for which they were suspending my claim, and the facts they were relying on to come to those reasons. This did not happen. The Comcare delegate just told me that my claim was suspended, and asserted a bunch of fact which were not even true as a reason to suspend my claim, and then told me that I had not provided a good enough reason, without actually asking me for or even allowing me the opportunity to provide a reason.

What does this have to do with your (taxpayer) money?

I told the Comcare delegate they were breaking the law, 2 minutes after they issued me the suspension, I pointed out that I did not receive procedural fairness/natural justice, see for yourself

The Comcare delegate just ignored my above email completely. This is standard behaviour at Comcare, when you point out they have done the wrong thing, they will ignore you, and then they will set about finding ways they can paint you as a villain to try and discredit you and divert attention away from their lawbreaking. I am here to draw your eye to their lawbreaking, and pointing out that you are paying for it with your tax dollars.

What happened next was an entire saga of Comcare having another attempt at forcing consent from me, and threatening to somehow suspend my already suspended claim if I did not provide my consent. If you wish to catch up on these matters you can do so here [part 1] and here [part 2].

In early February 2024, I received an email from a law firm called Clayton Utz. That email informed me that Clayton Utz was the law firm representing the respondent (Comcare). A few days later I got another email from Clayton Utz and interestingly, Clayton Utz were telling me that they were going to tell the Court that Comcare had broken the law, and that the decision should be set aside (it means the decision was never made). Obviously I already knew Comcare had broken the law, I literally told Comcare 2 minutes after they made the decision that they stuffed up, but apparently it took them another 2+ months and god knows what large sum of tax dollars paid to Clayton Utz, just for Comcare to front the court and admit they broke the law. How embarrassing for Comcare, but at an unnecessary cost to the taxpayer.

The two lawyers who identified themselves to be representing the respondent (Comcare) are Caroline Bush and Tal Aviram

Clayton Utz put a bunch of orders that they wanted the Court to make on behalf of the respondent (Comcare), and Clayton Utz requested that I sign a statement that I agree to the orders. The orders did not address my concerns. I obviously had concerns about Comcare delegates hiding their identity when making decisions, and the orders that they were trying to make me sign did not address any of these concerns. So I responded with a counter offer, I said things such as: If Comcare agrees to use a different claims manager, one who will use their name going forward, if Comcare will cease trying to force me into providing my consent, etc., I will sign their orders.

Comcare did not even attempt to negotiate with me, they ignored everything I said, instead continuing to insist that I sign their orders, so I simply refused. I will not be forced into doing anything, I am not the one who broke the law here, Comcare is the one who broke the law, so they need to work with me to resolve the issue, not make demands that I unconditionally sign whatever they want me to sign, no way, not going to happen.

What was the outcome of the court matter?

It's still ongoing, His Honour has adjourned the matter telling me that I should get a lawyer to assist me with this journey, which is a fair comment because I am brand new to bringing matters before the Court like this, and His Honour was nice to me in that he has made orders that the respondent (Comcare) will pay for my lawyer, noting that the respondent (Comcare) volunteered to do so as part of their response to my application. But of course, this is your tax dollars that are being spent unnecessarily here because if the Comcare delegate did their job properly on the first occasion, none of this would be occurring, and this expenditure on the public purse would not exist.

His Honour made some orders in respect of this case

Note the section I have have put a red box around. This is a huge win for me! This is either the most, or one of the most salient issues that I wanted to bring before the Court. I have had a gut full of cowardly Comcare delegates making decisions that break the law, and hiding their identity so they cannot be called out for doing so. His Honour clearly agreed with me, because he went on to say something similar to the following

"When someone makes a decision that affects a person's life, the person has a right to know who made the decision."

I could have cried when His Honour said this! This is exactly what I have been trying to tell Comcare for about half a year now! What Comcare is doing is completely wrong, and I now have affirmation from the Court that it is indeed wrong.

Comcare has been instructed by the Court to identify the Comcare delegate who made the flawed decision, and the Court has told Comcare that it disapproves of their tactic of hiding the identities of Comcare delegates.

This sets a precedent, given that the Court has formed the view that I have a right to know who the Comcare delegate is making decisions that affect my life, Comcare would be foolish to go against the Court and continue to hide the identity of its delegates. Comcare in doing so would be, in essence, giving the finger to His Honour, the Court, and the justice system as a whole. If Comcare does not accept what His Honour says, then Comcare (Australian Government) is demonstrating to us, the public, that it's ok to ignore the Court, and the justice system can be safely ignored.

The gag & the disingenuous misrepresentation

You'll notice His Honour has issued an instruction to myself not to make public criticism about the people who made the decision. What occurred is when making the instruction that Comcare must disclose the decision maker to me, His Honour asked the respondent (Comcare) if it had any objections. Tal Aviram replied in the affirmative and stated that I have been making posts online, and that my posts have been "referred". On that basis alone, His Honour said something like

"I can make an instruction that the applicant doesn't criticise you once learning your identity, so I will issue that instruction also"

Now this was very disingenuous of Tal Aviram, because while yes, it is true that I have been referred to ACT Policing for my online posts, what Tal Aviram neglected to mention was the outcome of that referral. The outcome of that referral was the police came to my home, and they told me I was doing nothing wrong and left. They found I was breaking no laws, they gave me no warnings or instructions and left without incident. Tal Aviram gave the court only half the story, told the court I had been "referred" but then stopped short of explaining that the referral resulted in a finding of innocence. This is grubby behaviour by Tal Aviram, and in my opinion, reflects poorly on Clayton Utz. How desperate do you have to be to sell half a story to the Court?

Anyway, as a result of Tal Aviram's objection, His Honour made the gag instructions to me, and at first I didn't understand what His Honour was saying. I actually thought that His Honour was saying that I couldn't criticise these people ever again! And I felt a lot of sadness about these words because I thought I was going to be censored and gaged and could not continue on my public campaign of awareness against these offenders. So I actually said to His Honour something like the following

"Your Honour, I feel like that is incredibly harsh, the police came to my home, and they said I am not doing anything wrong and they left."

His Honour explained to me that his instruction was only for this decision under review before the Court, and that I could still criticise Comcare employees for past or future decisions, therefore I immediately felt a lot better about the instruction once I understood it properly. I told His Honour it was less harsh in that case, and thanked him. Now you might be wondering, why did I thank His Honour for putting a gag on me? The reason is that I was very grateful His Honour had stated that Comcare delegates must not hide their identity. I figured it was not worth arguing with His Honour, I will just take the hit of not being able to name and criticise Comcare employees on this one single decision, and instead be happy about the win that Comcare must identify delegates to me. So you'll notice in this post I'm not naming anyone and criticising them, that is because the Court has instructed me not to do so.

How has Comcare handled being told they are wrong

Not great being honest. The FOI team has started relentlessly rejecting my FOI requests, the S59 team still pretends I have not made any S59 requests and refuses to produce any documents to me. They won't even give me a status update despite my repeated queries. They are very upset, these people are just lawbreakers plain and simple, they want to do what they want, when they want, funded by the public purse and the law is no impediment to them when doing so, as is evident by this very matter before the court.

At the end of the day Comcare doesn't have a leg to stand on here because when we assess what has occurred, it is exactly this:

a) A Comcare delegate made a decision and broke the law when doing so

b) When Comcare was informed that they had done the wrong thing, instead of apologising and working with me to achieve a resolution, they ignored me, sent the police to my home, and just doubled down on their lawbreaking and bad behaviour

c) Comcare unnecessarily spent taxpayer funds to the law firm Clayton Utz to try and make demands that I sign their orders that they preferred, and so Tal Aviram could smear my reputation by telling the court half the story

d) All of this could have been avoided if the Comcare delegate did not make errors when making determinations, especially errors of law

e) Comcare could have resolved the issue without an expensive court trip, but instead, Comcare staff were allowed to hold a grudge, and then use the public purse as their own personal war chest of funds to fight me

f) Comcare is now paying my court costs and paying for me to have a lawyer represent me further in this matter. All of this is an assault on the public purse that could have been avoided.

I don't understand why the public is not outraged by this? We get upset when a politician spends $5,000 to take a helicopter ride to a party, we get upset when the boss of Australia Post buys luxury watches as performance bonuses for staff, so when Comcare staff are allowed to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars for lawyers and court costs, simply to fuel their personal vendettas against us Comcare claimants, and because they are unwilling to forgo their egos, admit they were wrong and fix the issue, why is the public not outraged about this expenditure also? Got me buggered, anyway it is what it is, I have told you the truth, my story you have, take it or leave it I guess.