Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that;

(a) it has been 41 days since the opposition formally requested that the robo-debt system be suspended while it was fixed;

(b) the Minister for Human Services says that the system is working well despite reports of innocent people being targeted, Centrelink staff at breaking point and widespread concern outside this place;

(c) the robo-debt system has seen hundreds of people issued with debt notices which are either false or grossly inflated; and

(d) the robo-debt system is due to target Age Pension and Disability Support Pension recipients this year;

(2) condemns the Minister for Human Services for his failure to respond to growing community concern and calls from welfare groups to act; and

(3) calls on the Prime Minister to intervene to halt the system and fix it before age pensioners and those with disabilities are terrorised for debt they may not owe.

This parliament has been witness to extraordinary arrogance over the past week. Rather than coming to this place to apologise for the robo-debt letters debacle that he has presided over and to suspend it, as Labor has asked him to do, last week the Minister for Human Services strutted to the dispatch box to effectively declare, 'Nothing to see here folks. It's all fine.' The minister has arrogantly swept aside the concerns that thousands of Australians have expressed, despite the breathtaking error rate. The government admits that 40 per cent could be wrong and that 20 per cent could be going to people who do not owe even one cent. Let us be clear: Labor supports recovering money from people who have been overpaid, whether it is from people who have sought to game the system—a tiny minority—or from people who have simply made errors or not kept their records up to date. But Labor does not support recovering money from people who do not owe it, and Labor does not support treating people who receive social security as second-class citizens, to be labelled as cheats, leaners and burdens on society, as government members have done.

This has been like one of those mail scams where thousands of fake invoices are mailed out or emailed and, if even just a handful of people pay up without checking whether they are real, it nets a tidy profit for the scammers. This is what this government has been doing—sending letters to people who do not owe any money and keeping whatever is sent back from people who are too busy, too trusting or too frightened to check. Indeed, this government is so committed to taking money from people who do not owe it anything that it has instructed Centrelink staff not to correct errors unless those errors are brought to their attention by a client. It is my sincere hope that the Senate inquiry into the robo-debt letter scandal, which was initiated last week by Labor, will take a good, hard look at that instruction and get to the bottom of who issued it and on what authority, and investigate its lawfulness and whether it breaches any code of conduct, because it is an abominable instruction.

Case study after case study has been presented of people being strong-armed into paying debts that they do not owe, and this minister's arrogant, dismissive reply is to say, 'Call the 1800 number.' That would be the 1800 number that it takes hours to get through on and where, even if you can talk to someone, you cannot reach an agreement, because they do not have the authority to properly help you. Last month the member for Franklin and I and Senator Carol Brown held a community forum with the shadow minister, who is here today, where we invited Tasmanians to turn up to tell their Centrelink stories. We heard from Marie and Bill and others, each of them struggling to deal with Centrelink and to meet its demands for information.

Bill used to drive a bus part time and received Newstart; now he is an age pensioner. Bill received a robo-debt letter claiming he owed 3½ thousand dollars. He did not believe he owed the money but, to avoid his pension being affected or being sent to a debt collector while he sorted it out, he asked to repay $10 a week, but was told no. He had money in the bank, so the government took the lot in one go. Now it turns out the ATO and Centrelink had used different names for the same employer. Bill is convinced he does not owe the money, but he is now worried he will not get it back. This government has taken 3½ thousand dollars from an age pensioner without being certain that he owes that money. A government that cared for its citizens would be more careful, but this is a government that cares for some citizens more than others.

For a week we have put up with a government road-testing its new focus group-approved slogan. We do not hear about 'jobs and growth' anymore; now it is 'hardworking Australians'. The insidious subtext is that if you are not a 'hardworking Australian' you are not included in this government's priorities—pensioners, students, people with a disability or mental illness. We get the picture, and it is not pretty. It is a deliberate plan to divide Australians, to turn them against each other, to encourage those who earn a wage or own a business to sneer at those who do not. A great strength of this country is that we look after each other. Some of our most iconic imagery and stories are of Australians lending each other a hand—whether it is through flood, fire or drought, the barricades of Eureka or the mud of Kokoda, we are at our best when we stand together. Today's cleaner is tomorrow's pensioner. A healthy firefighter today is tomorrow battling cancer. Today's farmer tomorrow busts his back. In Australia we look after each other through good times and bad. That is something this government should learn. I commend the motion to the House.

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