The head of the Department of Parliamentary Services has announced a sudden “period of leave”, leaving a former anti-corruption commissioner in charge of the department.
The secretary, Rob Stefanic, announced to staff in an email on Wednesday morning he had made a decision to “take a period of leave”.
Jaala Hinchcliffe, the department’s deputy secretary who was an interim deputy commissioner for the National Anti-Corruption Commission (Nacc) until January, would act as secretary.
Stefanic’s email indicated a new hire, Nicola Hinder, who started on Tuesday, would become the acting deputy secretary while Hinchcliffe took on higher duties.
“The year has passed rapidly and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the incredible achievements and contributions across our department to support the effective operation of the Australian Parliament and Australian Parliament House,” Stefanic wrote on Wednesday before his leave.
A DPS spokesperson confirmed the secretary was on leave but would not “disclose details on individual leave arrangements”.
Stefanic has been approached for comment.
Stefanic was appointed as the department’s secretary in December 2015. He was reappointed for a second term in December 2020 for another five years to 13 December 2025.
The Australian Department of Parliamentary Services (DPS) has self-assessed that everything is mostly fine with its infrastructure, following a leaked that everything was not.
Last month, the ABC reported that an internal audit written by KPMG had given many elements of DPS the lowest cyber maturity rating possible.
Department of Parliamentary Services Secretary Rob Stefanic takes sudden 'period of leave'
Department of Parliamentary Services Secretary Rob Stefanic has taken a sudden "period of leave".
Mr Stefanic announced the leave in an all-staff email on Wednesday, advising that he would be away for an unspecified period of time.
"I have decided to take a period of leave and Jaala Hinchcliffe will be acting as secretary while I'm away," the email, seen by The Canberra Times , said.
Ms Hinchcliffe was an interim deputy commissioner for the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) until January.
DPS Secretary Rob Stefanic has taken 'a period of leave'. Picture by Keegan Carroll
Nicola Hinder, who recently moved to DPS from the Department of Veterans' Affairs would "take on the Deputy Secretary role to support Jaala while she is acting Secretary".
"There will be some resulting changes to reporting lines and the executive team is ready to support you through any concerns you might have with these interim changes," Mr Stefanic wrote.
"Please reach out to your division head, Nicola or Jaala if you would like to chat. External support is also available via our EAP [Employee Assistance Program] Provider".
The secretary was quizzed at Senate estimates about a report in The Australian that he, at some stage, was in a relationship with Cate Saunders, who served as a deputy secretary at his department from 2020 to April 2023.
Mr Stefanic denied they had been in a relationship while he was her boss, and later said they had a "close friendship", which he had declared after becoming aware of "gossip and rumour" circulating in Parliament House.
In his emailed on Wednesday, the secretary wrote that "the year has passed rapidly and I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the incredible achievements and contributions across our department to support the effective operation of the Australian Parliament and Australian Parliament House".
"Thank you for your commitment to service - which is a Parliamentary Service Value that I see in operation in our department every day," he wrote.
Comment has been sought from the department.
Department of Parliamentary Services secretary Rob Stefanic at the launch of the Parliament House Christmas giving tree on Thursday. Picture: Penny Bradfield
Parliament boss grilled over ‘toxic’ workplace culture
Nine -9- years ago Robert Stefanic appointed new secretary of troubled Department of Parliamentary Services
Liberal Party insiders line up pay day from Morrison government policy
Controversial former Coalition minister Stuart Robert has been leveraging his work as Australia’s inaugural digital minister as part of a $500 million venture to build a giant data centre to store defence secrets and other sensitive government information.
Leaked documents reveal that Robert has spruiked his stewardship of Australia’s data onshoring policy to help him negotiate a private business proposal for a data centre on private land owned by an ex-Defence official next door to the HMAS Harman military base in Canberra.
In the confidential documents, Robert argued the need for a data centre in Canberra was “being driven” by the policy he introduced as minister that “all Australian government data is housed on-shore”.
The deal, if realised, could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and deliver a windfall to Robert and his backers.
According to one of Robert’s confidants, the venture also involves figures in ex-prime minister Scott Morrison’s inner circle, including lobbyists David Gazard and Scott Briggs.
Robert’s new business venture is a case study of what integrity advocates describe as the “revolving door” phenomenon involving former politicians joining the corporate sector in areas over which they previously wielded significant policy and political influence.
But it also comes with Robert still embroiled in a major scandal – first exposed by this masthead
in late 2022 – over allegations he used his political influence to help his friends win consulting work with government contractors who specialise in IT, data and national security, and whom Robert was dealing with as a minister or MP.
The scandal prompted a parliamentary referral to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and dragged in several large federal government contractors, including
Salesforce and Oracle, over allegations they enjoyed privileged access to Robert after hiring one of his friends as their consultant…
“I’m a private citizen so I am not a public figure any more in any way, shape or form, so anything I do is commercial-in-confidence,” said Robert, before hanging up abruptly.
It is not suggested Robert developed the policy as minister with an eye to his future, only that he is now seeking to profit from his own policy.
Transparency International’s Australia director Clancy Moore said Robert’s post-parliamentary business dealings showed why Australia urgently needed to extend the cooling-off period to a minimum of three years “in keeping with international best practice”.
“Ministers should be allowed to find jobs, but they shouldn’t profit from their work in parliament for at least three years to ensure their parliamentary work is focused on the public interest, not private gain,” Moore said.
Robert’s new business interests not only involve major government contractors he previously and controversially dealt with as minister – such as Salesforce – but overlap with the interests of lobbyists and businesspeople with close ties to the Liberal party.
In June, businessman and finance broker Damien Simonfi, who for years has floated in and out of Robert’s inner circle, lent more than $5 million to a private Canberra development firm that, weeks later, became one of Robert’s proposed partners in the data centre project.
In late August, ACT government records show Simonfi had further dealings with the owner of the land next to the military base, former Defence official Amresh Sharma.
“Whenever I don’t know something, I will just call on anyone who might have a specific set of skills in an area – could be a friend or a developer, or, in this case, Stuart, who’s got knowledge of Canberra,” Simonfi told this masthead when quizzed about his recent involvement with Robert.
“And so all I said was, do you know where this Harman military base is? … And he [Robert] went, ‘Yep, know all about it’. And that was the end of the conversation.”
Simonfi is a long-time political backer of Robert, with his firm donating $15,000 to the Queensland Liberal branch in 2013 and attending multiple functions in support of Robert in the following years.
In 2022, Simonfi interviewed the then-minister in his office for a podcast that promoted both Robert’s political acumen as well as Simonfi’s lending business, Capital Bridging Finance.
On the podcast, Robert said: “For those unaware, Damien’s company Capital Bridging Finance has provided advice to me and to Treasury over many years in terms of the impact of government policy on that bridging finance space…”
The contractors were seeking to profit from the Robert-backed efforts to modernise and security-proof federal government data and IT systems.
Leaked emails written by Milo reveal that Robert encouraged multiple government contractors to hire Synergy 360, while Milo also regularly called on Robert to meet with his actual or potential consulting clients.
Last year,
a parliamentary inquiry found that Milo had approached IT giant Salesforce in May 2019 to help it seek federal business and subsequently arranged three meetings with Robert.
The National Disability Insurance Agency, which Robert oversaw as minister, selected Salesforce as its preferred bidder for the management of a new IT system.
Leaked emails also reveal that Milo arranged meetings between IT firm Oracle and Robert to help Oracle win contracts from the federal government.
The revelations about Robert’s secret backing of Milo climaxed with allegations, aired in parliament last year, that Synergy 360 intended to pay Robert for secretly assisting it to win work from government contractors.
That allegation was denied by Robert, Milo and Margerison, but referred by the joint committee of public accounts and audit to the NACC a year ago for further “forensic” investigation. The anti-corruption agency has declined to say whether it has launched an inquiry.
Robert is not the only former public official hoping to profit from the tract of land next to HMAS Harman.
In around 2018, a serving Defence Department IT infrastructure project manager, Amresh Sharma, bought the land next to HMAS Harman. Sharma, who quit defence in early 2023, said he purchased the property for about $4 million and hoped to build a house on it.
In an interview with this masthead, Sharma said that in mid-2022, while still working for defence, he struck a conditional deal in which he would sell the land to a Canberra development firm for over $30 million.
He said that he had no idea its value lay in its potential to be turned into a defence data centre.
Sharma also said that subsequent investigations by the Defence Department had found he had acted appropriately in his dealings with the land.
There is no suggestion by this masthead that Sharma ever acted improperly, misused defence department information in connection to the land deal, or that Sharma has had any dealings with Robert.
