Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I start by commending the shadow minister and the member for Maribyrnong, who was so diligent in pursuing this issue over recent weeks and months and who has brought the government to account on a shameful scheme. Can I also commend the earlier speakers on my side, the members for Dobell and Parramatta. But mostly, can I commend ordinary Australians, like Deanna Amato—the real Australians who are holding this government to account. Can I commend Deanna Amato for having the courage to go to court to show that what this government has done to a scheme that had been working effectively is to make it not only grotesque and inhuman but unlawful.

Let's return to the beginning of this MPI discussion, to what can only be described as a rather disturbing, bizarre and insensitive speech by the minister. It was a speech which you would not have expected to have been delivered by somebody who had just lost a court case which showed that the scheme that had been working is now, shamefully, putting thousands of Australians at a massive disadvantage—and these are our most disadvantaged Australians. If you had heard that speech and all of the frothing at the mouth and all of the abuse he hurled at others, you would expect he was the one who had been wronged, not Deanna Amato. It was a bizarre performance from a man who cannot stand to be shown up. I expect that, if Deanna Amato were in the chamber, she may have copped a bit of abuse.

And I go back to one of the comments by the member for Wright—that this is a bubble issue. Of all the things I've talked about today, of all the things I've talked about this week, this is the least characterisable as a bubble issue. To reinforce that point, I go back to some quotes by Deanna Amato. After winning her case against the government, against the minister's scheme, she said:

You can feel so small and helpless next to the government, but I am so glad that the unfair and ultimately unlawful aspects of this system have been brought to light.

She also said:

I've proven my innocence—

She shouldn't have to prove her innocence, because she'd done nothing wrong—

… but also proven that there are reasons why you need all the facts before you can demand debt payments from people …

Here we have the words of a real person living in non-Canberra-bubble Australia. Those opposite should not be so quick to dismiss this issue when they have been shown to have ruined a scheme that worked sensibly and cautiously in their brazen rush to bring more dollars into their coffers.

Fortunately, after the minister spoke, the tone calmed down, but there was a certain intellectual dishonesty of the speakers that followed—the member for Wright and the member for Wentworth—who harped on about the point that there are going to be no free passes and that all they're doing is trying to collect money rightfully owed to the government. But let's go back to the comments of Deanna Amato: 'I've proven my innocence.' The whole point here is that we have a scheme which has had the human element taken out and the onus of proof shoved onto people in a very intimidatory way that is not only insensitive and shameful but unlawful. And those opposite act as if nothing's happened: 'Nothing to look at here! There are not tens of thousands of Australians disadvantaged in an unlawful way. We're just collecting appropriate debts.' No, you're not.

What you've done is taken a scheme that everybody in this place agrees should occur—yes, we should have different government departments talking to each other and, if there has been an appropriately identified debt, let's approach that debt in a sensitive, appropriate way. What we have said from the start is that it is not appropriate to change that system by taking human checking out of it. It is not appropriate to change that system in such a way that the likelihood of errors goes through the roof. In fact, we don't even know how many errors there have been through that system. And it is not appropriate to change that system in a way which changes the onus of proof and makes Australians feel like criminals and shames them simply for, at some point in their life, taking part in a welfare system which I hope everybody in this place would agree is an important part of our social safety net.

So, to the speakers who followed the minister and his rather rabid speech: no, this is not an issue of whether or not it is appropriate to collect debts. This is about whether the system that does that should be appropriate and sensitive and done in a way which does not make mistakes and does not put the burden onto Australians who already have too many burdens put on them by this shameful government.

See this speech in context