Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Between 2016 and 2019, over 443,000 Australians received notices of debt from Services Australia—443,000. The bare facts of this debt collection process, which became known as robodebt, were the following. Firstly, these notices were false. Secondly, they were generated by a process called income averaging, which failed to produce an accurate debt figure. Finally, the process did not comply with the Social Security Act 1991 or the law. Put simply, this means these Turnbull-Morrison debt notices were unlawful. Those are the facts.

However, what these empirical facts fail to illustrate is the damaging impact these notices of debt had on hundreds of thousands of Australians. The personal toll was significant and traumatising. As I'm sure you well know, people died because of these Turnbull-Morrison debt notices. People died. Many people felt ashamed and stigmatised—the opposite of how Australian welfare recipients should be treated. In many cases, victims were made to feel like criminals as they were relentlessly pursued by outsourced debt collectors. In some tragic circumstances, the receipt of a Turnbull-Morrison debt notice played a role in those subsequent suicides.

The very well respected royal commissioner Catherine Holmes provided the following summary in her detailed report:

Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration, in both human and economic terms.

The implementation of the scheme by the coalition governments is a lasting and shameful stain on their political records, but they should not be held accountable just for the initial implementation. The scheme lasted for four long years, and as it progressed there was both increasing public distress and well-publicised criticism. As Prime Minister Albanese said when the royal commission handed down its report:

For more than four years, Liberal Ministers dismissed or ignored the significant concerns that were raised over and over again, including in the Parliament, but also by victims, by public servants, by community organisations and of course, by legal experts.

I particularly praise the public servants that had the courage to call out what was a travesty of justice. Some public servants—I won't name them; I'm not one for using parliamentary privilege—I condemn them for their cowardice.

The final royal commission report was damning, and it stated:

The beginning of 2017 was the point at which Robodebt's unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent. It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically, and an enormous amount of hardship and misery (as well as the expense the government was so anxious to minimise) would have been averted. Instead the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all. The government was, the DHS and DSS ministers maintained, acting righteously to recoup taxpayers' money from the undeserving.

Despite the growing body of evidence, it took a ruling by the Federal Court for the former coalition government to finally end the scheme in 2020. What a disgraceful, cruel and contemptuous way to treat the Australian public, especially some of our most vulnerable Australians.

The Morrison government eventually refunded the unlawful debt repayments at a cost of over $720 million. The refunds came with some sort of grudging apology—it completely lacked grace and contrition and was forced out of the former Prime Minister in question time in parliament. A formal apology, I note, was never made, nor has any member of that coalition government ever personally apologised for the deaths and damage that they are responsible for. Obviously, the Liberal Party is a party of free choice; it's not a collectivist party. They're able to make free choices, and I look forward to them—the members of those two parliaments—making that decision in terms of being able to live with themselves.

The establishment of a royal commission into the robodebt scheme was an election commitment of the Albanese Labor government, and I thank the Hon. Bill Shorten for being the driver of that process. It began in August 2022 and held 46 days of hearings, with over 100 witnesses. The witnesses included victims as well as the Services Australia staff who had been required to implement the scheme, from July 2016 to when it was eventually scrapped in May 2020. The royal commission received 1,099 submissions. Reading the submissions is a sobering experience. It's unthinkable that so many ordinary Australian citizens suffered so much. It is also unthinkable that it was perpetrated by government departments, by public servants, by the federal government—institutions that the Australian public should have been able to trust.

The Albanese Labor government took swift action when the report was handed down. In November 2023 we confirmed acceptance and in-principle acceptance of all 56 of the royal commission recommendations, and today I stand in support of the Oversight Legislation Amendment (Robodebt Royal Commission Response and Other Measures) Bill. This is the bill that implements our response to recommendations 21.1 and 21.2 of the royal commission's report. It focuses on bolstering the oversight capabilities of the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman.

Australians have the right to be able to believe that the Commonwealth agencies are fulfilling their roles impartially and with integrity. The public deserves to be able to trust that these institutions are operating lawfully and transparently. That is where the role of the Ombudsman comes into play. The bill will amend the Ombudsman Act 1976 and the Inspector-General of Taxation Act 2003, boosting the powers of the ombudsmen and strengthening the foundations of their independent and robust oversight role. This addresses the finding of the royal commission that the checks and balances that should have stopped robodebt were ineffective.

The royal commission found evidence that documentation was withheld from the Ombudsman. This was crucial evidence that called the legality of the scheme into question. The report also detailed occasions when the Ombudsman was 'fobbed off with explanations' and described a situation where the Department of Human Services dissuaded the Ombudsman from mentioning the legality issue at all. Ultimately, the report made it clear that the role of the Ombudsman required bolstering. As a consequence, the bill confers a statutory duty on secretaries and agency heads, and officers of their department or agency, to assist the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman in the event of an investigation. This is a recommendation of the royal commission, and we're extending it by imposing a requirement that these personnel assist the ombudsmen in discharging all their duties.

The ombudsmen will also be granted the power to access agency records fully and directly in the event of an investigation, and the bill makes it a criminal offence to withhold this access and any required assistance. The capability to undertake impartial and transparent investigations will enhance trust in government agencies as well as the offices of the ombudsmen. The bill contains additional amendments to assist in the efficiency of these oversight duties, including the ability to access documents remotely for an investigation. It also extends the duties and power to apply to other roles under the Ombudsman Act, such as the Defence Force Ombudsman and the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman. It amends the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Act 1986 to ensure that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security can access assistance when making inquiries about the head of an intelligence agency.

The amendments in this bill are part of a larger suite of reforms that the Albanese Labor government has committed to in response to the damning royal commission report. One of these is the amendment of cabinet procedures to ensure that there is full understanding of legal issues concerning new policy proposals. Yes, it's a radical idea that the laws we implement should be legal, I know, but it's 2024. We're also re-establishing the Administrative Review Council, after its short-sighted abolition under the 2015 Liberal government. The Administrative Review Council is an independent policy advisory body which will inquire into administrative law and monitor the performance of the administrative review system—all important oversight functions.

Labor is prioritising funding for measures to implement the royal commission's recommendations. We're directing $2.3 million over four years from 2023-24 and $700,000 per year thereafter to the Commonwealth Ombudsman to boost its oversight over government agencies. A total of $5.4 million over four years, with $1.7 million ongoing funding thereafter, will enable the establishment of the Administrative Review Council. The Office of Legal Services Coordination will receive substantial funding to focus on the identification and management of legal risk, and this will be supported by additional funding for the Office of Constitutional Law to improve how this risk is identified for cabinet consideration. Crucially, there is $5.6 million over four years, with $400,000 ongoing, in new funding for the Attorney-General's Department to develop a legal framework for the use of automated decision-making in government services. Labor has also rejuvenated Services Australia's personnel numbers. The former coalition government reduced staff by 3,800. We've restored funding, staff and efficiency. Human oversight is obviously a necessary part of the system that will ensure that robodebt is never resurrected.

The royal commission was established to apportion responsibility for the design and implementation of robodebt, to work out just how a succession of former coalition governments could impose an unlawful and damaging scheme on the Australian public, especially some of our most vulnerable people. Its other aim was to ensure that something like robodebt can never happen again. This bill strengthens the powers of the oversight function in our democracy.

I will finish by quoting the Attorney-General: 'Oversight keeps government agencies accountable to the people they serve.' This is a baseline standard that should be in place, and this bill is an important part of the Albanese government's wholehearted and committed response to the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. I commend the bill to the House.

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