Commonwealth Ombudsman - Annual Report 2009-2010 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

On this page

1. Community engagement
2. Review and research bodies
3. Engaging internationally
4. Cooperative project with other government ombudsman offices

Engagement

It is important that people know who we are and what we do. The Ombudsman’s office engages with various stakeholders:

• the community – to raise awareness of the role of the Ombudsman and to seek input on various issues
• agencies – to promote good public administration and improve complaint handling
• review bodies and research organisations – to look at issues related to promoting good public administration and administrative law
• other Australian Government integrity agencies and complaint-handling agencies, and other Australian ombudsmen–to share learning experiences and tackle common problems
• regional and international partners – to promote good ombudsmanship.

This chapter outlines some of these activities and achievements in 2009–10. Further examples of our engagement with both agencies and broader outreach are included in Chapter 5—Agencies overview and in feature pages throughout the report.

Community engagement

Engaging with the Australian community is not always easy, especially in rural and remote areas.

We engaged in a diverse variety of outreach activities, including an increased focus on homeless clinics, reaching out to gay and lesbian communities about legislative changes affecting same-sex couples, immersion at multicultural events, orientation week activities at universities, and major rural and agricultural events.

In 2009–10 our staff were involved in 109 outreach activities across all states and territories. These activities involved contact with 34,000 people, a 22% increase on the previous year.

A large part of our outreach work continued to be associated with the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).

Our outreach activities included:

• conducting roundtable discussions with community groups and other special interest groups in all state capital cities
• conducting repeated outreach visits to Indigenous communities and town camps in the Northern Territory, utilising information and outreach items targeted on informing Indigenous people about the role of the office
• visiting Defence Force establishments to highlight the Defence Force Ombudsman role
• participating in joint activities with Australian Government agencies and other ombudsman offices, Child Support Agency Community Information Sessions, NSW Good Service Forum and NAIDOC week
• distributing Commonwealth Ombudsman publications to relevant information outlets.

The feature pages throughout this report highlight the breadth of outreach and engagement activities undertaken around Australia.

Academic prizes

In 2002 the Ombudsman’s office established The Australian National University (ANU) ‘Jack Richardson Prize in Administrative Law’. The prize recognises the contributions made by the first Commonwealth Ombudsman, who was also a former professor of law at the ANU. The annual prize is for the best essay by an undergraduate student in administrative law. This year’s Jack Richardson Prize was awarded in March 2010, jointly to Kyle Hallett and Max Tan.

In 2007–08 the office established the ‘Dennis Pearce Top Performance in Administrative Law Prize’ at the University of Canberra. The prize is named after the first ACT Ombudsman, Professor Dennis Pearce, and is awarded to the student who receives the highest grade in the administrative law unit in the University of Canberra’s Law School. The 2009 winner wasIvo Basoski.

Ms Anna Clendinning, Senior Assistant Ombudsman presenting Mr Ivo Basoski with the 2009 Denis Pearce Prize

Review and research bodies

Legislative review

During the year the office contributed to the development of new legislation in several areas. As the proposed lead agency in the anticipated new whistleblower legislation, we contributed to consideration of legislation that will support the reforms. This was done both through formal submissions and informal discussions.

Several of the reports produced throughout the year made recommendations that had legislative implications. One of these was report 4/2010—Comcare and Department of Finance and Deregulation: Discretionary payments of compensation, which recommended a review of policy and legislation for compensating people adversely affected by poor administration by non-FMA agencies. It looked at complaints made by two people who had suffered due to inaccurate calculations their entitlements.

Administrative Review Council

The Ombudsman is an ex officio member of the Administrative Review Council, established by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 Part V. The Council provides advice to the government on administrative law issues and reform. During the year the Ombudsman and acting Ombudsman were active members of the committee, but both expressed concern that this important Council, which draws on some exceptional expertise, has not been exploited to its potential, largely through the absence of a full-time secretariat.

Whistleblowing

From 2005 to 2008 the Ombudsman’s office was a partner in an Australian Research Council-funded Linkage Project – Whistling while they work.

Following an inquiry by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, the Government committed to the introduction of new whistleblowing legislation. It would see the Commonwealth Ombudsman as the principal agency to which whistleblowers could turn if they considered that the agency about which they wished to make a disclosure had not respond adequately. The office continued preparations for this role in anticipation of new legislation being introduced.

Human rights in closed environments

The office is participating in another Australian Research Council-funded Linkage Project, awarded to Monash University—Applying human rights in closed environments: a strategic framework for managing compliance. The project aims to facilitate the implementation of human rights in ‘closed environments’ such as prisons, forensic psychiatric institutions, mental health and disability facilities, community residential units and immigration detention centres. The project objectives include:

• assessing the readiness of ‘closed environments’ in Australia to incorporate and apply human rights obligations into their daily operations
• evaluating the likely impact of the human rights legislation on the functioning of closed environments
• developing practical strategies to facilitate compliance with human rights obligations in closed environments.

The office also joined an informal committee of agencies concerned with human rights protection for immigration detainees with a view to ensuring that the relevant agencies minimised unnecessary overlap and maximised coverage in this field.

Engaging internationally

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has a dedicated international program and cooperates internationally in a range of activities to improve government administration, complaint handling and ombudsmanship on the international stage.

Our work is funded largely by AusAID. As a result of agreeing to funding agreements for several years into the future, we made a further commitment to this work by recruiting another full-time staff member to our International team at the start of 2010. The international program works in three main areas: Papua New Guinea, the Pacific region and Indonesia.

Papua New Guinea

Our twinning program with the Ombudsman Commission of Papua New Guinea (OCPNG) has continued to benefit both our organisations through a number of activities. This program has now been going for five years, and we are successfully building on work that started several years ago. Although we are still reliant on the work done by individuals over the years, we can now see that the work is outlasting the individuals – and new staff from both organisations are achieving outstanding results by building on the previous work.

In 2009–10 the twinning program continued to support long-term placements from PNG to our office, and from our office to the OCPNG. The twinning program also had a number of short-term specialist placements to work on specific areas that the OCPNG had identified as needing improvement.

Major activities under the twinning program during 2009–10 included:

• An officer from our office went to OCPNG to assist in identifying areas where the OCPNG’s website and network connectivity with its regional offices could be improved using available resources.
• Deputy Ombudsman Ron Brent worked with the OCPNG Director, Leadership to identify areas in which the twinning program could assist within the Leadership Division of the OCPNG.
• An OCPNG officer spent two months with our Law Enforcement and Legal teams to learn about police investigations.
• An OCPNG officer spent two months with our Tax team learning efficient case management, work processes and managing unreasonable complainant conduct.
• The Chief Ombudsman of PNG, Chronox Manek, spent two weeks in Australia talking with a broad variety of government organisations, as well as many areas of our office. A highlight of the visit for Chief Ombudsman Manek was a discussion with the Minister for Trade, the Hon. Simon Crean MP.
• Counsel to the OCPNG, Virgil Narakobi, had a two–week visit focusing on legal practice management within an ombudsman’s office. We were pleased to also host a senior lawyer from the Victorian Ombudsman’s office, Penelope Ralston, who shared her organisation’s experience in providing legal advice and managing litigation.
• The Manager of the OCPNG’s Intake and Screening Unit, Laniet Tokiala, spent two months with our Public Contact Team, assessing the different ways that initial approaches to our office are handled, and tracking the movement of complaints, documents and files through our office to finalisation.
• Deputy Ombudsman Vivienne Thom held two training sessions at the OCPNG on administrative deficiency and remedies for complainants, and on quality assurance and review processes within an ombudsman’s office. Dr Thom also co-chaired a general discussion with Ombudsman Phoebe Sangetari on ‘Women in Leadership—Challenges and Opportunities’ with the OCPNG women’s group. There was a lively discussion on gender challenges in PNG and ways that better gender equality may be achieved.

The program continues to be considered a major success by our office, the OCPNG and AusAID. The OCPNG plays a key role in improving accountability and efficacy or administration in PNG and this program has made a significant contribution to the development of the OCPNG.

Pacific

In 2009–10 we continued to provide secretariat and logistical support to the Pacific Ombudsman Alliance (POA). The first annual general members’ meeting of the POA was held in Canberra on 18 and 19 March 2010.

Under its charter, the aim of the POA is to provide a service delivery and mutual support organisation for ombudsman and allied institutions of countries that are members of the Pacific Islands Forum. In 2009–10 the following activities were organised under the POA umbrella:

• An officer from the NSW Ombudsman’s office spent three months working with the Vanuatu Ombudsman, to finalise a major investigation report and assist Ombudsman Taurakoto to host a one-day forum that brought together a number of leaders and agencies to consider reforms to the Ombudsman Act and Leadership Code Act.
• An officer from our office followed up a previous three-month placement with the Samoan Ombudsman’s office with a one-month placement of consolidation work, which reinforced the success and sustainability of the business process improvements implemented during the previous placement.
• A Samoan Ombudsman officer spent two weeks in our Sydney office learning about our work processes and case management.
• POA became an Australian Partner Organisation for an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development. The Ambassador will work with the Vanuatu Ombudsman’s office from July 2010, with the POA providing support, access to our networks and back-up advice if needed.
• The Complaint-Handling Ombudsman Backed Scheme (CHOBS) trial started in Niue in February. On behalf of POA, the New Zealand Office of the Ombudsmen gave support and backing to a trial of a non-legislative complaint-handling scheme for Niue, which does not have a formal ombudsman. The trial is ongoing, and next year we hope to be able to support a similar scheme in other non-ombudsman small island states.
• Two members of the International team attended the Pacific Human Resource Managers’ Conference in Tonga, and gave a presentation on the role of the Ombudsman and public sector reform. Our officers also scoped future program assistance to the Tongan Commission for Public Relations (the Commission) with the aim of increasing the Commission’s effectiveness as an oversight body.
• A website was created for the POA at http://www.pacificombudsman.org.
• The POA newsletter ‘Network News’ was sent out each quarter electronically to members, stakeholders and interested colleagues.
• The POA made contact with the Timor Leste ombudsman-equivalent body, and were pleased to host the Deputy Provedor for Good Governance, Amandio de Sa Benevides, at the POA and APOR meetings in March 2010.

The next general members’ meeting of the POA will be held in Solomon Islands in June 2011. The meetings will be hosted by Solomon Islands Ombudsman, Mr Joe Poraiwai, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of his office. Throughout the year the Commonwealth Ombudsman and Acting Ombudsman chaired the Board of the POA.

Indonesia

Our office has worked with the Ombudsmen of the Republic of Indonesia (ORI), and its predecessor organisation, the National Ombudsman Commission (NOC), since 2006. The NOC was originally established under presidential decree, but in 2008 the founding legislation for ORI passed the Indonesian Parliament and the organisation now has a legislative basis.

Under the legislation, ORI is to be governed by nine new ombudsmen. The recruitment process is still ongoing. During 2009–10 we undertook several activities with ORI to assist them in forming their new role and structure.

In December 2009 then Deputy Ombudsman, Ron Brent, assisted the Indonesian consultants with human resource management for the new office. Greg Andrews, NSW Deputy Ombudsman, participated in workshops on resolving complaints and disputes in relation to land titles.

In June 2010 three officers from ORI visited Australia for a two-week program covering a range of parliamentary and industry ombudsmen across Australia. The officers – Mr Ignatius Herru Kriswahyu, Ms Irma Syarifah and Ms Ani Samudera–learned about the many different models of complaint handling and held discussions on how they could be applied to the broad and varied jurisdiction of ORI.

Cooperative project with other government ombudsman offices

The two Deputy Ombudsmen continued to participate in the forum of Deputy Ombudsmen from the federal, state and New Zealand ombudsmen offices. A key project of the group has been to develop a manual to guide management of difficult complainant behaviour. The manual has been published and has received wide usage across complaint agencies in all spheres. During the year the Deputy Ombudsman forum initiated a further stage of the project to develop additional support materials.