Centrelink: 367 privacy breaches, 2 sackings, 0 prosecutions

News.com.au carries the story that Centrelink, in the last financial year, had:

• 367 proven breaches of privacy regulations by it's staff;
• A further 239 breaches of the Australian Public Service code of conduct (eg staff accessing records of relatives with permission but in contravention of the code of conduct);
• 296 employees were given a written warning;
• 44 were fined or had their salary reduced;
• 13 were reprimanded (is there a substantive difference between a reprimand and a written warning?);
• 24 people resigned; and
• 2 people were sacked.

The most amazing part of the above is what's not in the article - prosecutions.  Presumably because there weren't any.  This from the agency that tells us to "trust them" with the Access Card database.  Who say that their staff won't snoop through people's records because it will be a criminal offence to do so.

Despite the fact that, unlike the offences which are likely to apply to everyday people, the snooping-by-government-staff offences:

• Carry a maximum penalty of 2 years jail, as opposed to 10 years for the ordinary-people type offences;
• Do not have offences of strict liability, as opposed to many of the ordinary-people type offences; and
• Are highly unlikely to ever be used, because as the above figures indicate, Centrelink will warn their employees, or reprimand them, or fine them, or allow them to resign, or very occasionally fine them, but never prosecute them.

Trust them with the Access Card database?  Sure -- about as far as I could spit them.