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

I thank the member for Makin for his question. Over the last two weeks I have updated the House about royal commission evidence on how various groups in the community warned the government about the unlawful robodebt scheme: the whistleblowers, the lawyers, the media and the brave victims.

There's another group the royal commission has heard evidence from: the welfare advocates. These people are underfunded. They tirelessly and continuously warned about robodebt on behalf of our most vulnerable. Specifically the royal commissioners heard from respected welfare advocates Genevieve Bolton, Katherine Boyle and Katherine Eagle. Importantly, they reminded the royal commission that Australia is a signatory to the United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, specifically article 9. Article 9 states that social security is a right for people to access. In other words, it is not an optional charity to be taken on a whim by the government.

These advocates further gave evidence that they repeatedly told the former coalition government they had concerns with the averaging process, the automatic application of a 10 per cent interest fee, the unreliability of the automated process. The victims had to chase information from employers who were no longer in business. The victims were told at Centrelink that they first would have to borrow money from payday lenders or use their credit cards in order to pay unlawful debts. There were victims fleeing domestic violence who were homeless. The first time they knew they had a Centrelink debt, a robodebt debt, was when the debt collectors found them.

The victims were told that, in a significant departure from previous practice before the coalition government, they had the onus—

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