The public sector in Western Australia is supposed to be relatively corruption free, well that is the intent anyway. That was all thrown into disarray when further massive misappropriation of government funds was discovered. This corruption really damaged the reputation of the public sector in Western Australia.

The Assistant Director General of the Department of Communities was formally charged by police with the theft of $25 million, not the $2.5 million that I originally thought. I thought this was a misprint, $2.5 million is a whole lot of services not going to the intended recipients. This is $25 million of public money in what appears to be one of the most serious cases of public sector corruption in the country.

There is clearly a lack of financial oversight, an inadequate tender process coupled with intentional abuse of staff. This is genuinely hard to believe, how can a state government organisation misplace sums of money that large. A habit of incompetence is clearly rife in that department with a culture of fear embedded to prevent whistleblower action. The inability to question authority and wrongdoing at multiple levels in the organisation is the unfortunate values the Department of Communities espouses.