Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Wright, who I normally like, made the interjection '2011'. That's not true; no more lies from the government on this. Taking out the human fact-checking and simply relying on the algorithm happened on this government's watch. So how long did they know? Furthermore, if we move beyond 'how long did they know', how many people are affected by this? How much money will have to be refunded?

We've got the talkative minister here. This is now his problem. How much money will you spend hiring public servants that you got rid of to review the cases? How much money do you think you're going to have to pay back to people? The minister said, somewhat Morrison-esque, in shire-like language, that it's a small cohort. Well, how big is the cohort, Minister? And then you go further. Who is responsible for this mistake? How long will it take to pay the refunds? How much will you have to pay? Labor says, as a result of this case, that a wrong has been done to nearly one million people by its government behaving unlawfully. This is the government of Australia behaving unlawfully to hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. What a shame.

Fortnightly income averaging should never have been allowed to be the basis for Centrelink to determine that a debt existed. There was no onus on welfare recipients to establish they did not owe a debt based purely on fortnightly income averaging. The Commonwealth has breached its duty of care to vulnerable welfare recipients by alleging that robodebts were real debts when they weren't. The Commonwealth has been unjustly enriching itself under the robodebt scheme. It should refund the money it has taken unlawfully, plus interest. For the record with the class action: the Commonwealth is a model litigant. How long are they going to spend more taxpayer money fighting for an indefensible scheme, causing more pain and trauma for people who have been illegally treated? And, by the way, the Federal Court gave interest to Ms Amato for garnishing her tax. Every day the government doesn't fix the matter, it is probably costing the taxpayer another $100,000 a day in interest payments; that's bigger than your internet bill!

See this speech in context