I’ll move on to another line of questioning. Last year, after a tender process, the commission awarded a contract to Hue Consulting for the development of a web-based anti-racism resource for primary school students, and this happened in October 2023. The contract specified an end date of 30 June 2026. I understand that, in March, the AHRC decided to end that contract early. Why did you decide to end that contract early?
Senator FARUQI: I’ll move on to another line of questioning. Last year, after a tender process, the commission awarded a contract to Hue Consulting for the development of a web-based anti-racism resource for primary school students, and this happened in October 2023. The contract specified an end date of 30 June 2026. I understand that, in March, the AHRC decided to end that contract early. Why did you decide to end that contract early?
Prof. Croucher: I will call on our chief executive to answer that one.
Ms Smith: The commission began a procurement in March 2023, under the National Anti-Racism Strategy, to produce some educational materials for primary school students on racism. We approached a total of seven suppliers and received two quotes from two suppliers, IndigenousX and Hue Consulting. We spent a lot of internal time from May to October working within our own relevant areas to develop a contract for services with Hue Consulting, and that contract was approved in early October last year.
Senator FARUQI: My question is: why did you end the contract early?
Ms Smith: We had some public engagement around some of the activity of one particular director of Hue Consulting, in the public domain, which raised community concerns.
Senator FARUQI: Did you tell Hue Consulting that this was the reason for ending the contract?
Ms Smith: We didn’t. We took a different approach. When we received the concerns from the public about some of those statements on social media by one of the directors, we met with Hue Consulting to get their perspective on the public conversation going on and what their perspective was. We also shared with them that, as Australia’s national human rights institution, it was our job to work with and be trusted by all communities, not only in our education campaign work but particularly importantly in our complaint handling work, and that their activity on social media had caused concerns, risks and threats to our ability to do that. Rather than ending the contract immediately, we worked with Hue Consulting to ensure the delivery of some of the content that we had been waiting on; and, rather than leaving the contract open and having the educational resources sit on the platform of Hue Consulting, we simply made the decision to bring the contract forward, have the materials reviewed by our commission and have them sit on our webpage.
Senator FARUQI: If I have this right, you didn’t tell Hue Consulting the actual reason for why you ended the contract. That’s pretty unprofessional, wouldn’t you think, misrepresenting—
Ms Smith: That’s not what I said.
Senator FARUQI: and lying to the contractor as to why you ended the contract with them, when the actual reason was very different?
Ms Smith: I gave these reasons to Hue when we met with them.
Senator FARUQI: You didn’t say that was the reason for ending the contract, though.
Ms Smith: That was the reason for varying the contract and bringing forward the end date of the contract. Hue were paid for the work that they had completed under the contract.
Senator FARUQI: That’s pretty flabbergasting. You say that you’re building those resources in house now. Do you have the expertise to build those resources in house?
Ms Smith: We have the content provided by the contractor. We’ll review the content. The only thing that remains is to host the content, which we’ll look at doing on our own website, as I said earlier.
Senator FARUQI: When will that be completed?
Ms Smith: I don’t have a timeframe for you at the moment. I can take that on notice.
Senator FARUQI: Yes, could you take that on notice?
Ms Smith: Yes.
Senator FARUQI: From what you’ve said, I gather that your decision to end Hue’s contract had something to do with the reporting in the media, probably by the Australian on 21 March; is that correct?
Ms Smith: As I said earlier, it was to do with public discourse around statements made by one of the directors, particularly in the context of the nature of what was said, and these are education materials for primary school students.
Senator FARUQI: Following what you say was public discourse in the article in the Australian newspaper, did you receive any complaints or contact from any organisations or individuals about this particular contract?
Ms Smith: Additional complaints, no.
Senator FARUQI: So you received no complaints or contact from any organisation about Hue Consulting?
Ms Smith: I would need to take that on notice, if I may, and see whether any complaints came through the complaints service or the public affairs team.
Senator FARUQI: Okay. Did you receive any correspondence from the Attorney-General or their department in relation to your contract with Hue before you ended that contract?
Ms Smith: We received no correspondence. We did answer questions from the department, yes.
Senator FARUQI: So you did have contact from the Attorney-General’s Department about this contract?
Ms Smith: We had conversations in our regular catch-up, where we briefed them on how we were approaching the contract, not instructions.
Senator FARUQI: Not instructions—
Ms Smith: Not instructions.
Senator FARUQI: from the Attorney-General’s Department about the contract?
Ms Smith: No, Senator.
Senator FARUQI: I understand that Hue emailed the Race Discrimination Commissioner in early May, seeking to discuss the impact of this decision on their work; was this request granted?
Ms Smith: Would you like to address that to the Race Discrimination Commissioner?
Senator FARUQI: Yes, sure.
Mr Sivaraman: Senator, do you want to put the question to me?
Senator FARUQI: Yes, sure. Did you meet with Hue? As I understand it, Hue emailed the Race Discrimination Commissioner in May, seeking a meeting to discuss this issue.
Mr Sivaraman: I did not.
Senator FARUQI: Was there a reason why you did not?
Mr Sivaraman: The chief executive had already had meetings with Hue—I’m not sure whether they were before I started or when I had a week’s leave soon after starting—and I asked the chief executive whether I should respond. I want to make sure that this is correct. I can get the chronology right if I’m able to take it on notice. It was quite early after I started, but my recollection is that, because there were already discussions happening, effectively, I handed it back to the people who were already having the discussions.
Senator FARUQI: Commissioner, did you express a view to anyone in the commission about the contract termination?
Mr Sivaraman: I think what occurred was a contract variation and not a termination.
Senator FARUQI: Hue’s contract was terminated.
Mr Sivaraman: I don’t know whether the contract has been terminated yet; I’d have to take that on notice. I thought it had been varied. Do you mind if, just in terms of the termination versus variation, I hand this back to the chief executive?
Senator FARUQI: Sure. In either case, did you express a view to anyone in the commission about this issue?
Mr Sivaraman: Yes, there was a meeting with the president, the chief executive and members of my team where I think we discussed the contract. There was also a commissioners’ meeting where we discussed it, and I think I, amongst many others, expressed views on it, yes.
Senator FARUQI: What was your view?
Mr Sivaraman: I think my view was pretty similar to what the chief executive just expressed, in the sense that the work that the commission has to do, in terms of its conciliation function, and the work that I’ll have to do—I’ve already started—in terms of engagement with all communities that are being affected by an increase in racism, means that I have to have the trust of all of those communities, and that may have been affected by the statements of the Hue founder. For that reason, I agreed with the decision that the commission made.
Senator FARUQI: So you agreed with the termination of the contract. It’s effectively a termination, bringing the date forward; it’s just semantics. So you agreed with the termination?
Mr Sivaraman: I agreed with the decision. I don’t want to call it something that it potentially is not without looking at what happened.
Senator FARUQI: Chair, I have a few more questions for Commissioner Sivaraman and Commissioner Finlay, if that’s alright.
CHAIR: Well, we’re going to hand the call around, so that’s the end of that block, but we’ll come back to you. Senator Henderson, you have the call.