Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports these changes in principle. Implemented well, they will make the social security system more accurate and eventually make it easier for people to report their income. This bill is now returning from the Senate after two Labor amendments were successful. The first amendment was a 12-month review of these changes. This is important to ensure implementation is done properly and that the government gets this right, because we simply don't trust them to get it right without scrutiny. The second amendment which was successful will ensure that income is attributed over fair and reasonable social security reporting periods that won't disadvantage social security recipients. It will prevent any kind of deliberate averaging strategy that will leave social security recipients worse off.

However, a third Labor amendment to once and for all end robo-debt was not successful. My colleague the member for Maribyrnong will expand on this. The Liberal government was given a choice: pensioners or another robo-debt. They chose robo-debt. And, as I said, the member for Maribyrnong will expand on this.

For three long, anxious and frightful years, the Liberal government pursued thousands of innocent Australians with false or inflated debts. For three years, this Liberal government defended a system that it knew to be illegal.

Over the course of the debate of this bill, Labor proposed measures to protect our pensioners, workers and students from another occurrence of the government's robo-debt scheme. I remember when news first broke of this disastrous and terrifying robo-debt scheme. I remember the first constituents who contacted my office, some of whom we are still assisting to this day. We were contacted by thousands of frightened Australians from all over the country, and this happened in everyone's office. Many were constituents from government electorates. These were pensioners, workers and students, driven to their wits' end by this cruel and malicious government. Many were simply too scared to challenge these false debts—so scared that they gave up and gave in, even though the government was plain wrong.

In this bill, Labor had proposed some very simple, practical and reasonable amendments to ensure that the Liberals' disastrous robo-debt scheme never occurred again. All we asked was that the government take some responsibility and ensure oversight and human intervention to prevent another robo-debt. They voted down the amendment. In so doing, the government refused to prevent social security debts being raised solely on income averaging. It was this income averaging that led the government into error in the first place.

The government refuses to accept the statutory duty of care to ensure debts are accurate. Why is it so controversial for the government to accept this duty of care? The government refuses to ensure human oversight over debts before they are issued. Why is this so much to ask of the government—to ask for human oversight? The government even refuses to use all available powers, resources and data at its disposal to verify the accuracy of the alleged debts. The government wants to go out there and send out social security debts to some of the most vulnerable people in this country, and yet it won't stand by the accuracy or veracity of these debts. The government has demonised pensioners, workers and students, and that is simply unacceptable. But, in voting down Labor's practicable and reasonable anti-robodebt measure, the Liberals now place pensioners, workers and students at risk of another robodebt. They deserve better from this government and this Prime Minister. 130,000 Australian workers are either not earning enough income or not receiving enough hours of work to get off Newstart. They deserve better. The thousands of students working hard and studying hard, the members of Australia's future workforce—they deserve better. For the tens of thousands of innocent Australians who have been subjected to the terror and anxiety of the Liberal government's robodebt scheme, they need to know that the government will be better than this. In reality, the Liberal government is refusing to rule out another robodebt.

As I said, two of Labor's amendments were accepted, the review, and the 'fair and reasonable' social security reporting periods. However, the third and most important of our amendments was not accepted, and I know that we'll be hearing more about this. The government has chosen the potential for another robodebt crisis, and it was a crisis, particularly for those people that were victims of robodebt.

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