The NACC is refusing to release its investigation into millions of dollars in Meals on Wheels contracts, instead telling the whistleblower she is confused about the outcome.
By Rick Morton
Exclusive: NACC letters gaslit Meals on Wheels whistleblower
The National Anti-Corruption Commission completed an investigation into almost $9 million worth of federal government contracts to a private consulting firm that tore apart Meals on Wheels services, but when asked for the required public report changed its mind and gaslit the woman who referred the matter.
Under the NACC Act, a completed investigation automatically triggers section 149 of the legislation, which mandates the production of a report outlining its investigation, the steps taken, the evidence assessed and either what corrupt conduct was found or, if none was found, recommendations about the failure to find such conduct.
In some circumstances, this report must be tabled in parliament. The NACC can also publish it online or provide it to people who made the original referral, although the accountability body maintains complete discretion on this score.
On July 17, NACC deputy commissioner Ben Gauntlett – who was involved in the original handling of the robodebt referrals from the royal commission that were aborted and then forced to be reopened – wrote to the woman who referred a complaint about the management of the so-called Future Fit Program that sought to “modernise” Meals on Wheels services in preparation for controversial aged care reforms.
“The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the Commission’s investigation into the matters relating to the FFP is complete,” Gauntlett advised in the letter.
“After consideration of the information obtained, the Commission has decided to take no further action in relation to its corruption investigation.
“The Commission engaged with and obtained a significant amount of information from Commonwealth agencies including DHDA [the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing], used various powers and reviewed information provided by you and other stakeholders.
“The information provided to the Commission established that the management of the consulting firm’s contract was affected by procedural deficiencies, including a lack of governance and oversight arrangements, inadequate documentation, inexperienced and overwhelmed staff members without sufficient relevant skills, an evolving program scope and poor management of stakeholder conflicts of interest.
“Dishonesty, intentional wrongdoing or the deliberate misuse of public resources or official information by individuals could not be established on the information provided.”
When the woman asked for the NACC’s final investigation report into her completed matter, however, the agency backtracked and said no such report would be filed because it never completed an investigation, noting instead that it had been abandoned. In addition, the general manager of legal at the NACC, Rebekah O’Meagher, wrote to the woman to suggest she was confused and referenced “pressures” in her personal life.
“It is evident that you and your family have experienced events that have significantly impacted you over the past years and there are also current pressures associated with your husband’s serious medical condition,” O’Meagher wrote on August 12.
“We appreciate that the use of the word ‘completed’ in our correspondence may have caused confusion. We apologise for this; it was not our intention. As previously advised, the decision made by the Commission was to reconsider the corruption issues investigated and take no further action. As a result, a report on the corruption investigation pursuant to section 149 of the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022 (Cth) will not be prepared.”
On Thursday, the NACC wrote to the woman to apologise for its “mistake”.
Gauntlett, a former counsel assisting the Solicitor-General of the Commonwealth, had used the word “completed”, which is the only word contained in s.149 to describe an investigation that warrants a full report.
In its 2024/25 annual report, the NACC revealed it had “finalised” 10 investigations that year but only one of these resulted in “an investigation report under s 149 of the NACC Act”. The others were discontinued under s.41, which has raised questions over whether the accountability body is routinely using the section to avoid reporting obligations.
Since its inception, the NACC has only released three public investigation reports of its own volition. Another five investigation reports listed on its website are carry-overs from completed investigations by the former Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity, which became the NACC’s responsibility. It is required to complete these reports as if the former ACLEI legislation was never repealed.
The three-year-old national integrity agency has not been so forthcoming on its own cases.
“If that’s the commission’s interpretation of the Act, it means investigations can run for many months, consume significant taxpayer resources and reach conclusions, yet the public and parliament never receive a report explaining what was investigated or why the commission reached its findings,” the woman who referred the matter tells The Saturday Paper.
On Friday last week, NACC inspector Gail Furness, SC, who performs the same role for the more established New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption, revealed cultural problems at the federal body had hindered its work.
There was “no question” her relationship is on a “more positive footing” since the resignation of the inaugural commissioner, Paul Brereton, she told the Joint Committee on the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
“We appreciate that the use of the word ‘completed’ in our correspondence may have caused confusion.”
“I haven’t had a meeting with the [NACC] since June 2024,” Furness told the hearing, noting that standard arrangements included quarterly meetings.
“In the last month, I think I can say fairly that I’ve spoken more with the acting commissioner [Kylie Kilgour] than I did with the former commissioner [Brereton] in the last three years.
“I think the former commissioner’s view of oversight and accountability is evident from the evidence … he has given before you and before Senate estimates, and in various submissions he’s made,” she said.
As a result of this culture, staff turnover at the NACC has been high and it seems to be drowning in referrals that went nowhere, partly due to this turnover and partly, Furness said, due to the former commissioner’s hoarding of delegation.
Of the more complex matters that require more work to assess – known as tier 2 matters – the NACC says it takes an average of 240 days to respond to a person who has referred a possible case to the body. Where preliminary investigations have been undertaken, that number balloons to 480 days.
In one case, Furness said, it took more than 800 days to update a person on the progress of their referral.
As a result of this and other issues, such as IT problems, and allowing for start-up issues, Furness said the treatment of referrals seemed haphazard.
“Look, to me it feels random. I don’t sense any pattern as to the nature of the referral that may or may not result in it taking longer,” Furness told the joint committee hearing.
“I don’t understand how a system can produce what appears to me somewhat random results.”
It is this apparent randomness that troubles the woman who referred the Meals on Wheels matter to the agency.
When the NACC’s legal head, Rebekah O’Meagher, highlighted the distressing “events” that may have affected the woman, she was, in part, talking about an alleged smear campaign against her.
Health Department officials and the directors of private contractor Miles Morgan Australia, the firm that was given $8.74 million in three contracts, discussed and circulated private details about a Meals on Wheels representative, apparently to discredit her.
In July, the new secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, Blair Comley, wrote to the woman who referred the matter to the NACC to personally apologise for the department’s conduct and “unauthorised disclosure of personal information”.
“On behalf of the department, I apologise for the unacceptable remarks that were made about you during the administration of the program by former departmental employees,” Comley wrote.
“These remarks should never have been made. I deeply regret that these remarks have caused you hurt, distress, and embarrassment and acknowledge that they fall short of the conduct expected of departmental employees. I also apologise for the breach of your privacy that occurred when you raised a complaint about a departmental employee, in the course of raising your concerns about the program.”
One of the senior public servants at Health, a then assistant secretary called Russell Herald, took the extraordinary step of writing to the chair of Meals on Wheels Australia in December 2024 ahead of grim findings from the Australian National Audit Office about the management of Future Fit and to apologise for his behaviour.
“I can now advise that my decision to suspend [my responsibilities for meal delivery reform in the department] was because I had concluded my engagement with several members of the meals on wheels organisation over the course of the project fell well short of the standards expected from a person in my position,” he wrote at the time.
“I also noted that my emotional state as it was at the time in relation to this project meant I was, in effect, not fit-for-duty. This is something I have since reflected on, and something for which I must, and will, be held accountable for as a senior public servant. My regret is not identifying this at an earlier point in time.”
In May 2025 the ANAO found the project’s “procurement processes fell short of ethical standards” and was otherwise littered with serious governance and oversight shortfalls. Miles Morgan Australia was placed into receivership in mid 2024 and by December that year, just days after Herald’s letter, liquidators released a preliminary report showing the company owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to creditors.
“Procurement effectiveness was further undermined by insufficient demonstration of value for money, failure to maintain complete records, limited achievement of procurement objectives, and weak probity management,” the ANAO found.
According to O’Meagher, the NACC “reached” its decision “after reconsidering how to deal with the corruption issues” under a different part of its governing Act, subsection 41(5) and, under subsection 41(6), “deciding … to take no further action”.
This is not what Gauntlett communicated in his July 17 letter, however, repeatedly referring to a completed investigation that, he said, did not establish “dishonesty, intentional wrongdoing or the deliberate use of public resources or official information by individuals”.
Under subsection 149 of the NACC Act, “after completing a corruption investigation, the Commissioner must prepare a report … on the investigation” and this must include “the Commissioner’s findings or opinions on the corruption issue”.
The Act clarifies: “To avoid doubt, for the purposes of paragraph (2)(a), if the Commissioner forms the opinion that a person whose conduct has been investigated has not engaged in corrupt conduct the Commissioner must set out that opinion in the report.”
In response to both Gauntlett and O’Meagher, the woman who referred the matter wrote that the legal general manager’s comments were “inappropriate”.
“The placement of those comments immediately before the Commission’s assertion that the use of the word ‘completed’ may have caused confusion creates the clear implication that my personal circumstances somehow contributed to a misunderstanding of the Commission’s correspondence,” she wrote to O’Meagher last Thursday.
“That implication is incorrect. I was not confused.
“The issue is now a very narrow one. It is not whether I agree with the Commission’s findings. It is whether the Commission has complied with its statutory obligations under the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022 after expressly informing me that its corruption investigation was complete.
“The Commission’s correspondence over many months consistently advised me that a corruption investigation had been commenced, was progressing towards completion and had ultimately concluded.”
In fact, as the woman points out, Gauntlett himself set out the investigative steps taken since it agreed to “commence a corruption investigation” on April 15, 2025.
“The commission states that it commenced a corruption investigation, investigated two corruption issues, considered additional allegations and undertook further investigative enquiries, obtained a significant amount of information from Commonwealth agencies, exercised its statutory powers, interviewed witnesses, and sought clarification from the Australian National Audit Office,” the woman wrote.
“The Deputy Commissioner further advised that the Commission would write to the Secretary of the [Health] Department regarding ‘its decision in this corruption investigation’ and ‘the corruption risks its corruption investigation identified’.
“Eighteen months of taxpayers’ money was invested in this investigation. Parliament entrusted the Commission with extraordinary investigative powers and, in return, required transparency through section 149 when a corruption investigation is completed. Parliament and the Australian public are entitled to understand the outcome of an investigation of this magnitude.”
In a statement to The Saturday Paper, a spokesperson for the NACC conceded the error.
“We made a mistake in the correspondence to the referrer and we have apologised. And we apologise on the public record as well.
“In writing to the referrer, we used the word ‘complete’ as a plain-English explanation for the investigation having been discontinued pursuant to subsections 41(5) and (6) of the NACC Act. ‘Completing’ a corruption investigation has a separate and specific meaning under the NACC Act.
“Our choice of language caused this issue...
“Discontinuing investigations where no serious or systemic corrupt conduct has been found allows the Commission to devote resources to other investigations.
“The referrer has made a complaint to the Inspector. While the Inspector is considering that complaint, it would be inappropriate for us to make further comment in the media.”
