Complaint to ICAC against Service NSW Grant Clawback Extortion Scheme (PART 1)

October 20, 2024

What is Corruption?

‘Corruption‘ means the abuse of a position of employment, authority or trust to gain a business or personal benefit or advantage. It can also include making improper requests of Public Officials whereby the Public Official is asked to breach or contravene an applicable law or exceed their scope of authority.”

In the state of Victoria, The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) defines ‘corruption’ as:

“the misuse of public power, position or funds. It can happen through:

improper or unlawful actions
failure to act by public sector staff or agencies
people trying to improperly influence the functions or decisions of the public sector.”

[SOURCE: ‘What is Corruption?’, IBAC website, https://www.ibac.vic.gov.au/what-is-corruption#:~:text=Corruption%20is%20the%20misuse%20of,decisions%20of%20the%20public%20sector. , accessed 2024-10-20].

We herein provide copies of extracts of our Tour Director’s complaint report to the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (I.C.A.C.) 13^th September 2024.

For clarity, we firstly include extracts from the I.C.A.C. official website in two respects:

What the ICAC does
When to report

What the ICAC does

Receive complaints about corruption involving NSW public sector agencies (government departments and state-owned corporations), local councils, members of Parliament and the judiciary
Consider all of the information you provide and that is available, and then decide whether to investigate
Investigate only serious or systemic corruption

When to report

Corrupt conduct is deliberate or intentional wrongdoing, not negligence or a mistake.

While it can take many forms, corrupt conduct occurs when:

a NSW public official improperly uses, or tries to improperly use, the knowledge, power or resources of his or her position for personal gain or the advantage of others
a NSW public official dishonestly exercises his or her official functions, or improperly exercises his or her official functions in a partial manner, breaches public trust or misuses information or material acquired during the course of his or her official functions
a member of the public influences, or tries to influence, a NSW public official to use his or her position in a way that affects the probity of the public official’s exercise of functions
a member of the public engages in conduct that could involve one of the matters set out in section 8(2A) of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 where such conduct impairs, or could impair, public confidence in public administration.

SOURCE: https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/reporting/when-to-report

ICAC corruption complaints form

SOURCE: https://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/complaint/start.aspx

Step 1: NSW public authority

The NSW public authority involved in your complaint:

Our Response:

Step 2: Report Summary of Matter

Our Response:

“The ‘2021 COVID-19 Micro Business Grant’ was offered between 25 July 2021 and 18 October 2021 by the NSW Berejiklian LNP Government intended to financially support micro business in NSW as compensation for that government’s mandatorily imposed socio-economic pandemic lockdown across NSW (2020-2022).

Of the 82497 applications received, some 63,007 grant recipients (eligible micro business owners) were subsequently assessed, approved and paid by this government through 2021 via its delegated public authority ‘Service NSW’.

SOURCE: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/performance-dashboard/closed-programs-statistics

However, two years hence from 2023, various semi-anonymous (first name only supplied) callers and emailers so purporting to be from Service NSW, began contacting many of these grant recipients. Timely, in my experience it was just a week after the NSW state election of 25 March 2023. I got my first call from these scammers back on 11 April 2023.

These callers and emailers accused each grant recipient of having fraudulently obtaining the grant, demanding that each recipient first identify themselves over the phone with personal information to the caller, then agree to repeat their original grant application (under the guise of being an “audit”), to resubmit evidentiary documentation to re-substantiate eligibility for the received grant retrospectively. Callers and emailers have been intimidating these recipients, accusing them of fraud (until proven otherwise), also demanding that they provide private information about their family (bank accounts, marriage certificates, family names, etc), also demanding they repay the entire grant else the government will come after them and seize their personal assets.

As a micro business owner and grant recipient I have been similarly been contacted and threatened by all the above since the first phone call on 11th April 2023.

My own application lodged 1-Aug 2021 was assessed and deemed eligible 11-Aug-2021 by Service NSW under the Grant’s stated Guidelines plus separate Terms and Conditions pertaining to my particular micro business grant application. I’ve maintained detailed records of all supporting evidentiary documentation submitted at the time of application and then further during Service NSW subsequent so-called “audit” (1-April 2023 up to 30-April 2024).

I since lodged two separate formal complaints of harassment and intimidation by various semi-anonymous (first name only) callers and emailers to Service NSW CEO Greg Wells, but with no joy. I then complained to my local member of NSW Parliament who has represented my case to the responsible current NSW Minister for Digital Government The Hon. Jihad Dib MP.

I quickly then went public from May 2023 online via my business website’s blog, as a protest to this injustice. I have since received responses from 30 separate grant recipient business owners who have been similarly unjustly targeted and threatened by Service NSW callers and emailers demanding they repay the grant in full, or else.

This is the definition of criminal extortion – threatening someone else to gain a financial benefit. The acts of extortion from those in privileged power in a governmental delegated public authority to members of the public whom have done no wrong is corrupt conduct in my view. How can it not be? How can it go on unaddressed? Senior public servants entrusted with monopoly authority and the power that goes with that public trust, yet so allowed to abuse both authority and power with impunity?”

When did it occur?

Our Response:

“11-April 2023 to current. The extortion still persists.”

Where did it occur?

Our Response:

“By phone and email throughout the entire state of New South Wales. My business, Nature Trail, is based in Katoomba, NSW.”

Do you consider the conduct to be corrupt?

Our Response:

“(1) From my investigations, Service NSW’s in early 2023, two years after the last grant was paid in December 2021, set up an dedicated internal ‘Business Bureau’ under the management of Executive Director Cassandra Gibbens, and staffed by various recently recruited contracted debt collectors. My understanding is that this Business Bureau is tasked as part of a concerted internal programme of Service NSW to financially clawback repayment of each grant payment from thousands of approved grant recipients in full. Each paid out Micro Business Grant amount vary from $10,000 to $15,214.

One suspects that the Business Bureau management and contractors are received bonuses and commissions for successful outcomes (i.e. each repayment received). However, only a proper investigation by the I.C.A.C. would be able to verify this.

(2) From my experience in dealing with Service NSW in this matter and others who have been similarly impacted, Service NSW in its financial clawback programme is mischievously relying upon a declaration acceptance clause on the original online application form on its website portal, that each applicant needed to consent to being audited. That clause reads: “I consent to any information I provide being audited and I understand that I may be required to provide evidence of statements made in this application.”

However, at the time of the original application for his grant, Service NSW’s provided online form required and facilitated such statements to be attached. In addition, in ,my own experience during the 10 days between my submission and Service NSW email approval confirmation of my application, Service NSW had requested additional evidentiary records from me which I duly submitted as well.

The approval process was NOT automatic.

(3) The manner of contact by these debt collectors is intimidating harassment, with default accusations of grant fraud, until proven otherwise.

(4) The timing of this two years after the last grant was paid in December 2021 This is in breach of the Grant’s clause 4.8: “4.8. A business or not-for-profit organisation consents to being contacted by DCS (Department of Customer Service) , Service NSW and/or NSW Treasury for a period of 24 months after receiving a payment under the Program for the purposes of reporting on and evaluating the Program. A business or not-for-profit organisation agrees to provide any information that is reasonably required under this clause.”

(5) Service NSW has fabricated retrospective different Grant terms and conditions that it is using to justify its clawback basis

(6) Feedback I have received from grant recipients targeted by Service NSW’s extortionate clawback, state that Service NSW callers are telling them that Service NSW is contacting every one of the grant recipients to recover the full grant monies paid.

(7) A number of the grant recipient contacts have received, now sadly, invoices for the entire grant repayment and include threat of nonpayment of consequent asset seizure by the NSW Government.

I have copies of those. They appear to have been roneoed off on the same date. Their invoice due dates are the same and they have each recently expired. These invoices are not on Service NSW letterhead and have a different ABN – NSW Department of Customer Service – not related to the grant recipients’ agreement with Service NSW. Each invoice redirects receivers not to Service NSW but to Revenue NSW.

This suggests illegitimate debt collection collusion between Minister Dib and Minister Houssos.”

Step 3: Potential sources of information supporting the complaint

Our Response:

“I hold detailed evidence of my own experience with Service NSW regarding its clawback of my own grant payment case. Plus I have received copious records from 30 other micro business owners whom have contacted me and supplied me copies of their communication records with Service NSW in this matter – the intimidating emails and texts received from Service NSW in this clawback matter from ‘first namers only’, plus a number of threatening invoices they have also received from Service NSW.

It is not possible for me to include all these on this form. However, I consent to supply all such supporting information that I have is available to the I.C.A.C. upon request. This includes me travelling into I.C.A.C.’s headquarters in Sydney from Katoomba at my own cost to meet investigators about this.

If you wish to receive details of those impacted by this who have contacted me, please let me know.

For respectful privacy reasons and in trust, I would then first need to contact those concerned and request their approval.

So please let me know. Fairly, not all may wish to be mentioned or involved. I am not their representative.

I take this interest in just facilitating information exchange.

At this stage I have only authority to only lodge my own documented experience. The contents extends to two lever arch files that I am prepared to provide to the I.C.A.C. by either postal mail and/or email with PDF/JPG document attachments.

I attach a few here, and I am prepared to add further documents. But I have problems with your software system rules… “File names can’t contain the following characters: / ? : @ = & “” < > # % { } | ^ ~ [ ] ` + -“

As for the other 30 grant recipients who have contacted me about this matter, I am next to contact them each to respectfully request their permission for me to submit the evidence that they have sent to me, on to the I.C.A.C.”