CHAPTER 2 The organisation
Role and functions
The office of Commonwealth Ombudsman exists to safeguard the community in its dealings with government agencies, and to ensure that administrative action by Australian Government agencies is fair and accountable. The Ombudsman has three major statutory roles:
- Complaint investigation: investigating and reviewing the administrative actions of Australian Government officials and agencies, upon receipt of complaints from members of the public, groups and organisations
- Own motion investigation: investigating, on the initiative or ‘own motion’ of the Ombudsman, the administrative actions of Australian Government agencies—often arising from insights gained from handling individual complaints
- Compliance auditing: inspecting the records of agencies such as the AFP and ACC, to ensure compliance with legislative requirements applying to selected law enforcement and regulatory activities.
The complaint and own motion investigation roles of the Ombudsman are the more traditional Ombudsman roles that constitute the bulk of the work of the office. The guiding principle in an Ombudsman investigation is whether the administrative action under investigation is unlawful, unreasonable, unjust, oppressive, improperly discriminatory, factually deficient, or otherwise wrong. At the conclusion of the investigation, the Ombudsman can recommend that corrective action be taken by an agency. This may occur either specifically in an individual case or more generally by a change to relevant legislation, administrative policies or procedures.
A key objective of the Ombudsman is to foster good public administration within Australian Government agencies, ensuring that the principles and practices of public administration are sensitive, responsive and adaptive to the interests of members of the public.
The role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman is principally performed under the Ombudsman Act. There are special procedures applying to complaints about AFP officers contained in the Australian Federal Police Act 1979. Complaints about the conduct of AFP officers prior to 2007 are dealt with under the Complaints (Australian Federal Police) Act 1981 (Cth). This Act was repealed on 30 December 2006 after the relevant provisions of the Law Enforcement (AFP Professional Standards and Related Measures) Act 2006 commenced.
’ A key objective of the Ombudsman is to foster good public administration ...’
The Commonwealth Ombudsman can consider complaints about almost all Australian Government departments and agencies and most contractors delivering services to the community for, or on behalf of, the Australian Government.
The Ombudsman Act also confers five specialist roles on the Ombudsman:
- Defence Force Ombudsman—handling complaints by serving and former members of the Australian Defence Force relating to their service
- Immigration Ombudsman—handling complaints about the Department of Immigration and Citizenship
- Law Enforcement Ombudsman—handling complaints about the conduct and practices of the Australian Federal Police and its members
- Postal Industry Ombudsman—handling complaints about Australia Post and private postal operators registered with the Postal Industry Ombudsman scheme
- Taxation Ombudsman—handling complaints about the ATO.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman is also the ACT Ombudsman in accordance with s 28 of the ACT Self-Government (Consequential Provisions) Act 1988 (Cth). The role of ACT Ombudsman is performed under the Ombudsman Act 1989 (ACT), and is funded in accordance with a memorandum of understanding between the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the ACT Government. The ACT Ombudsman submits an annual report to the ACT Legislative Assembly on the performance of the ACT Ombudsman function. | 
Chapter 2
The organisation
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