Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Today's motion is another step in Labor's relentless political attack on the social security compliance program carried out under the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. It is deeply regrettable that the Minister for Government Services devotes such a large proportion of his time and energy to this unceasing political attack rather than concentrating on improving the delivery of government services to the millions of Australians who rely on them today.

A clear risk of this royal commission is that it will make the Public Service more timid, more risk adverse and less likely to think creatively and ambitiously about how best to serve the government of the day and in turn the Australian people. High-performing organisations in the private and public sectors encourage their people to generate ideas and to take risks. Many of the recent advances in the government services space at the federal level have relied on emulating best practice in the private sector and in other countries.

Consider the rollout of voice print, digital assistants, digital identity and video chat appointments, amongst many other reforms, delivered under the coalition. Consider in New South Wales the scrapping of the old motor registries, replaced by Service NSW model pioneered by then minister Victor Dominello and the New South Wales coalition government. These new ways of service delivery required innovative thinking from both the Public Service and within government.

If we are to do a better job of serving the public, it is important that public servants feel they are expected, encouraged and supported to develop, propose and implement evidence based public policy. It is also important that ministers can encourage and rely on innovative advice from their departments. Both of these desirable outcomes are, in fact, deeply threatened by the ferocious politicisation of the outcomes of the former government's income compliance program.

The royal commission's report makes it crystal clear that the central idea was developed by officials within the Department of Human Services. I do not say this to be critical or to point the finger; I say this because it is an example of what we want public servants to be doing—generating ideas. But how will any rational public servant in the future conduct himself or herself, at least in a world where the member for Maribyrnong remains in the parliament prepared to trash the careers of public servants if it will gain him a short-term political advantage?

Equally troubling is the novel doctrine put forward by the royal commissioner that, in the future, ministers should not feel confident in acting on the written advice of their departments. It is not in factual dispute that the then Minister for Social Services in taking forward a cabinet submission for the income compliance program did so on the basis of a formal new policy proposal prepared by his department which said on its face that no legislative amendments would be required to implement the proposal. Yet the royal commissioner says the then minister was under a duty to second-guess and to doubt this advice and, because he accepted it and took it forward to cabinet, he in some way had breached his duty.

I think, with respect, this conclusion makes no sense and is very bad for public administration. It is, yet again, a regrettable consequence of the ferocious politicisation of this matter, carried out by the member for Maribyrnong. Let us be clear. Our governments, the former Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, made mistakes with the Income Compliance Program. They were made based on the clear advice of the Public Service that the program was lawful. Once that advice changed, we acknowledged the mistakes on our watch, and we fixed it on our watch. The incorrectly raised debts were cancelled, all who had paid such a debt had it refunded or had their debt zeroed, and the then Prime Minister apologised to Australians.

One other troubling consequence of the member for Maribyrnong's royal commission is that it appears to reject the idea that there should be continuing scrutiny over the validity of social services payments and an ongoing process to identify instances of overpayment, whether innocent or fraudulent. To the extent that the royal commissioner puts this proposition, I express strong disagreement with it. Every dollar paid in social services benefits is a dollar raised from a hardworking Australian taxpayer, and taxpayers rightly expect that there are controls in place so that social services benefits do not go to people who are not entitled to receive them under the law. It's very important we draw the right lessons from this royal commission.

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