Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I made reference to this in answers yesterday. The issue of legality goes to one simple point, and that is the use of income averaging as the sole purpose upon which a debt may be raised for the purposes of reclaiming that debt where money has been paid in excess of a beneficiary's entitlements. It is true that, as a minister in previous portfolios and indeed as Prime Minister, I always accept responsibility for the decisions we take and the policies we support, and that policy was to use income averaging as a determinant to raise debt.

It was the same policy that the Labor Party used, and would account for some or more than 20 per cent of the debts they raised on exactly the same basis. The hypocrisy that is put forward by the Labor Party when the legal issue that is involved here is about income averaging as being the basis of raising the debt! My government is not going to walk back from the idea that, when moneys have been overpaid, when benefits have been overpaid, we owe it to taxpayers to ensure that we reclaim those debts. Of course, that is what is necessary. It has to be done lawfully. Where issues of lawfulness are raised in relation to income averaging, then those corrections will have to be made. I accept responsibility as Prime Minister, as the cabinet and others who are involved and ministers previously involved certainly do.

The hypocrisy that is put forward by the Labor Party is that the very practice that they followed in government and that was continued by our government they now seek to draw some distinction with. It's not the case. The Leader of the Opposition, in his long six weeks as a member of the Expenditure Review Committee when he was in government, may not be familiar with how these things work. Some of us have spent a bit more time managing these issues than he has. For someone who has spent such a long time in this place, he has a very narrow set of experiences. If you want to ask about standing orders or how the parliament works, then this fellow is your man. When it comes to matters of economic policy and doing the right thing by Australian taxpayers, though, this Leader of the Opposition would not have a clue.

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