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

I wish to specifically draw the attention of the House to some of the following evidence and exhibits in the royal commission revealing the warnings that were not acted upon: exhibit 3064, meeting with ACOSS, 29 November 2016; exhibit 4649, letter from former senator Nick Xenophon on 4 December 2016; exhibit 4641, media release from the member for Clark dated 6 December 2016; exhibit 4648, constituent representations also raised by the member for Clark in December 2016; exhibit 4648, data validation process that DHS briefed the member for Aston on in December 2016; exhibit 4652, Centrelink officer who blew the whistle to the media on 23 December; exhibit 4654, letter from the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children on 30 December; exhibit 4732, further correspondence warning on the scheme; exhibit 2532, an email from a Centrelink compliance officer to the secretary of the former minister's department on 7 February 2017.

There were protests from robodebt victims directly to the member for Aston's office. In addition, a literature search reveals literally tens of thousands of articles in the media. It's been revealed in the commission that the minister investigated the personal files of 52 complainants, but not the actual complaints about the legality of the robodebt scheme. There were 19,780 internal reviews by people within the system complaining about robodebt. There were 4,339 external reviews to the AAT related to robodebt. There was an ongoing campaign, which was recorded by the then opposition in the parliament, and other parties in the media. There was exhibit 4775, the missing $1 million PricewaterhouseCoopers commissioned report. Even a ParlInfo search reveals 713 mentions of robodebt in Hansardbetween 7 February 2017 and 12 November 2020. Australians listening to this question time will be justifiably perplexed and outraged as to why these warnings failed to have the scheme stopped. Perhaps one answer is that the four coalition ministers who've appeared have said, on no fewer than 140 occasions between them, 'I don't recall,' or some variation of that. When the ministers don't recall what was happening, what chance do the robo-victims have?

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