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

The minister, when he was asked about responsibility, made it clear that he blamed the ERC. He made it clear that he blamed the senior public servants. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know about the illegality. Instead, he said senior public servants should have told him, including one who is now deceased. He said that he had no visibility of the scheme when it was brought to cabinet. He said that the issues of current policy responsibility were a matter for the former social services minister. At different times, not only did he blame most of his current cabinet colleagues; he then blamed the left-wing media, and he then blamed previous Labor governments. The human blame factory here also blamed the complainants of the scheme.

However, I thank the last word about the evidence that we heard from that particular minister concerning the unlawful robodebt scheme should be left to his former media adviser, who put it better than most: 'The minister requested the file of every person who appeared in the media in order to make other victims think twice before coming forward.' What a fine specimen of coalition ministerial responsibility.

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