The Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet hand-balled $41,000 illegally paid to a senior official to another department because of an unnamed “potential conflict”, it is alleged.

Richard Colbeck’s aged care regulator gave Newmarch House the green-light to keep operating despite - after 2020’s deadly Covid-19 outbreak - it failing over 80 per cent of its safety standards.

Department of Finance Secretary Rosemary Huxtable wasn’t the “decision maker” who approved the department’s waiving of a $41,000 debt to a senior public official, her department has claimed.

The Federal Government was warned waiving senior official’s $41,000 debt was likely illegal and the opposite of the “many examples” of recovering “Centrelink overpayments”. It fully waived the debt anyway.

The Federal Government has become embroiled in another salary cap scandal, this time involving a key official of the nation’s media watchdog, secret Ombudsman documents reveal.

The corporate regulator has completed its review into the expenses scandal that cost the jobs of its chair James Shipton and deputy Dan Crennan - but it’s refusing to disclose the outcome.