Mark Withnell and Serena Wilson found corrupt as Nacc clears Morrison

Mark Withnell is named in a National Anti-Corruption Commission finding that he engaged in serious corrupt conduct, and the nacc has cleared former prime minister Scott Morrison of corrupt behaviour. The commission’s long-awaited report examined six referrals from the robodebt royal commission, and identified intentional misleading by two former public servants in 2015 and 2017.

Mark Withnell and Serena Wilson: the specific findings

Mark Withnell was found to have intentionally misled Department of Social Services officers while preparing a cabinet submission in 2015. That finding was one of two the commission described as serious corrupt conduct among the six people referred by the royal commissioner in 2023.

Serena Wilson, a former deputy secretary in the Department of Social Services, was found to have intentionally misled the Commonwealth Ombudsman during an investigation in 2017. The commission treated that action as a separate instance of serious corrupt conduct, distinct from the paperwork surrounding the cabinet submission.

Nacc investigation, the sealed Catherine Holmes referrals and February 2025 probe

The six referrals from royal commissioner Catherine Holmes were restricted in a sealed chapter of the royal commission’s final report. That sealed material was later examined by the Nacc after an independent reviewer recommended an inquiry, and the nacc’s formal investigation began in February 2025.

For a time the commission initially declined to investigate the referrals. That decision was overturned after National Anti-Corruption Commission Inspector Gail Furness found the commission head, Paul Brereton, had ties with one of the six officials and did not adequately recuse himself, a finding of misconduct that reopened the path to inquiry.

Nacc deputy commissioner Kylie Kilgour said publishing the final report provides transparency as to how those conclusions were reached. The attorney-general, Michelle Rowland, thanked the commission and said the federal government would move to table the previously sealed chapter.

Scott Morrison, Kathryn Campbell and the robodebt years, 2016–2019

Scott Morrison was one of four people the commission cleared of engaging in corrupt conduct. The report found Morrison’s failure to detect misleading advice stemmed from the social services and human services departments failing to advise him and other ministers that new laws were required.

Also cleared were Kathryn Campbell, Annette Musolino and Catherine Halbert. The commission did not make recommendations in its final report after reaching those determinations about the six referred individuals.

Between 2016 and 2019 the robodebt scheme recovered more than $750 million from almost 400, 000 people, and the program was linked in the royal commission’s findings to several suicides. That scale of recovery and harm underpinned the referrals that Catherine Holmes made in 2023 to the corruption watchdog.

For Mark Withnell, whose actions in 2015 are now catalogued in the commission’s findings, the next confirmed step is parliamentary: Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has said the government will move to table the previously sealed chapter of the royal commission’s report. That public release will place the commission’s conclusions about Withnell and Serena Wilson into the open record, and it returns the narrative to the people whose affairs were scrutinised by the royal commission and the nacc.