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

The trigger for the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Income Reporting and Other Measures) Bill 2020 is the digi-disaster called robodebt. It's not because hordes of welfare recipients have been ripping off the government. Instead, the government has been punishing welfare recipients with its own illegal use of inaccurate data. This legislation is all about fixing up the problems that the government created four years ago. It had a faulty algorithm. In cases where recipients were often 100 per cent correct, they still had to repay thousands of dollars. This legislation reflects that the government has partially recognised it is in the wrong, but, even as we speak, tens of thousands of robodebt victims and class actions are still having to argue their case against the government. The robodebt scheme was born of a desire of the government to find money off the most vulnerable, and it still hasn't got the message that that was an illegitimate, illegal scheme. I commend the amendments to the House.

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