The Australian Secret Intelligence Service is the foreign intelligence agency of Australia,tasked with the covert collection of information overseas through personal contacts and other means of human intelligence. It is part of the Australian Intelligence Community and is also responsible for counter-intelligence and liaising with the intelligence agencies of other countries such as the NZSIS. ASIS was formed in 1952 but its existence remained secret within much of the government until 1972. ASIS is comparable to the American CIA and the British MI6.
The Centrelink Master Program,or more commonly known as Centrelink,is a Services Australia master program of the Australian Government. It delivers a range of government payments and services for retirees,the unemployed,families,carers,parents,people with disabilities,Indigenous Australians,students,apprentices and people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds,and provides services at times of major change. The majority of Centrelink's services are the disbursement of social security payments.
Catherine Ena"Cate" Holmes is a retired Australian jurist who served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland,the highest ranking court in the Australian state of Queensland. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2000,to the Queensland Court of Appeal in 2006 and appointed chief justice on 11 September 2015. She retired on 19 March 2022.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian federal government responsible for foreign policy and relations,international aid,consular services and trade and investment. Australia's total official development assistance (ODA) decreased in 2022 due to differences in Australia's financial year reporting and the timing of its COVID-19-related expenditure,representing 0.19% of gross national income (GNI).
Claire Mary Moore is an Australian politician who was an Australian Labor Party Senator for Queensland from 2002 to 2019,having been elected in the 2001 Federal Election,and the Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific.
Services Australia,formerly the Department of Human Services and before that the Department of Social Security,is an executive agency of the Australian Government,responsible for delivering a range of welfare payments,health insurance payments,child support payments and other support services to eligible Australian citizens and permanent residents. Services Australia delivers social services through the government programs Centrelink,Medicare,the PBS and the Child Support Agency. Eligible Australian citizens and permanent residents can access many of these services through a myGov account.
Stuart Rowland Robert is an Australian former politician who served as Minister for Employment,Workforce,Skills,Small and Family Business from 2021 to 2022,following his appointment as Minister for Government Services and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in 2019. He was also appointed Acting Minister for Education and Youth in December 2021 and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Fadden upon winning the seat at the 2007 federal election,until his resignation in May 2023.
Charles Christian Porter is an Australian former politician and lawyer who served as the 37th Attorney-General of Australia from 2017 to 2021 in the Turnbull government and the subsequent Morrison government. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Division of Pearce from 2013 to 2022 and a member of the Liberal Party of Australia. Porter also served as Leader of the House and Minister for Industrial Relations from 2019 to 2021,and Minister for Industry,Science and Technology in 2021 following his resignation as attorney-general.
Deborah Mary O'Neill is an Australian politician who has served as a Senator for New South Wales with the Australian Labor Party since 2013. Before entering politics O'Neill was a school teacher and university academic. In her Senate role,she has been described as taking "a fierce approach to accountability." In June 2023,O'Neill was appointed to chair the newly formed Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. In this role,the committee has largely focused on failures of governance and public accountability amongst the large consulting firms Deloitte,EY,KPMG and PwC.
Alan Tudge is an Australian former politician. He was a Liberal Party member of the House of Representatives between 2010 and 2023. He was a cabinet minister in the Morrison government from 2019 to 2022.
The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture,practices,and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal,chaired by Lord Justice Leveson,who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The Inquiry published the Leveson Report in November 2012,which reviewed the general culture and ethics of the British media,and made recommendations for a new,independent body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission,which would have to be recognised by the state through new laws. Prime Minister David Cameron,under whose direction the inquiry had been established,said that he welcomed many of the findings,but declined to enact the requisite legislation. Part 2 of the inquiry was to be delayed until after criminal prosecutions regarding events at the News of the World,but the Conservative Party's 2017 manifesto stated that the second part of the inquiry would be dropped entirely,and this was confirmed by Culture Secretary Matt Hancock in a statement to the House of Commons on 1 March 2018.
Frances Jennifer Adamson,is an Australian public servant and diplomat who is the 36th Governor of South Australia,in office since 7 October 2021. She previously served as Australian Ambassador to China from 2011 to 2015 and as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 2016 to 2021.
Lynelle Jann Briggs,is a former Australian Public Service Commissioner. She was chief executive of Medicare from 2009 until 2011,when Medicare was integrated into the Department of Human Services.
Jan Elizabeth Adams is a senior Australian public servant who has served as the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade since July 2022. Adams is also a former Australian diplomat who served as the Australian Ambassador to Japan since October 2020. She was previously the Australian Ambassador to China from February 2016 to August 2019.
Finn Axel Pratt is a retired senior Australian public servant. He was most recently Secretary of the Department of the Environment and Energy.
Renée Elmina Leon is a former senior Australian public servant. From 18 September 2017 until February 2020,she had been Secretary of the Department of Human Services,which is now known as Services Australia. In August 2021,she became Vice Chancellor of Charles Sturt University.
Gregory Laurence Moriarty,is a senior Australian public servant and diplomat,and the current Secretary of the Department of Defence since 4 September 2017. He was previously the Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Moriarty has been Australian Ambassador to Iran from 2005 to 2008,Australian Ambassador to Indonesia from 2010 to 2014,the inaugural Commonwealth Counter-Terrorism Coordinator from 2015 to 2016,and the International and National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister.
The Robodebt scheme was an unlawful method of automated debt assessment and recovery implemented under the Liberal-National Coalition governments of Tony Abbott,Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison,and employed by the Australian government agency,Services Australia,as part of its Centrelink payment compliance program. Put in place in July 2016 and announced to the public in December of the same year,the scheme aimed to replace the formerly manual system of calculating overpayments and issuing debt notices to welfare recipients with an automated data-matching system that compared Centrelink records with averaged income data from the Australian Taxation Office.
Sophie Anna Rebecca Scamps is an Australian independent politician,general practitioner,and former athlete. In the 2022 Australian federal election,she was elected as the Member for Mackellar in the Australian House of Representatives. Scamps is classified as a Teal independent,as she was one of a group of independents at the 2022 federal election supported by Climate 200.
The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme is a royal commission established on 18 August 2022 by the Australian Government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902. The Royal Commissioner,Catherine Holmes,released her report on 7 July 2023.
