Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Maribyrnong proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's unlawful Online Compliance Program – also known as Robodebt.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

Today's matter of public importance is one in which I wish to have a conversation not just with the parliament but with the people of Australia. I want to talk about a Federal Court case from yesterday which has significantly altered the landscape of this government's welfare compliance crackdowns. I want to talk about the problems that this case has revealed in the government's shocking administration of welfare. I want to talk about the context, the damage, and I want to talk about the future and where we go from here.

For four years, Labor has complained about robodebt. We've spoken about the problems and the unfairness. Many thousands of examples have been revealed. The media have been diligent. In recent months we have formed the view not only that robodebt was incompetently and unfairly run but also that, indeed, the very basis of the scheme was illegal and unlawful. The government ignored us, as they do. They attacked us, as they do. They laughed at us, as they do. But yesterday the Federal Court made a significant decision. It found that the government's robodebt scheme, in fundamental features, is invalid; it is actually unlawful. I congratulate Victoria Legal Aid for taking the case and the plaintiff, Deanna Amato, for taking the matter of robodebt against the Commonwealth of Australia to the Federal Court.

The court specifically held, and I paraphrase: 'Any demand for payment of an alleged debt first made by the government to Centrelink recipients is not validly made in circumstances where the information relied upon by the Commonwealth is not capable of satisfying the decision-maker that a debt was owed or preconditions for penalties were present.' I say to the people of Australia: what this means is that your government, the current government of Australia, has been engaging in illegal, systemic extortion of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Australians. This case establishes beyond doubt that many thousands of our fellow Australians, people who rely upon the safety net of the social security system and of Centrelink—students on Austudy, farmers, single mums, the unemployed and people who in many cases are marginal, vulnerable and down on their luck—have been put upon in an unlawful manner. They have been not just treated unfairly, not just treated incompetently, but the recipients of illegal treatment from their own government.

Today I wish to explain to Australians why yesterday's court decision is most important to the people of Australia. The government introduced an online compliance scheme following the 2015-16 budget. I suspect it was on the basis of relying on computers to get rid of human jobs and, indeed, to whistle up money for creaky budget surpluses. On 11 February 2017 it renamed robodebt 'employment income confidence scheme'. The community know this is robodebt. At its heart, robodebt essentially calculates a Centrelink recipient's entitlement during the relevant fortnight—the fortnight in which they're entitled to the money—by reference to the total amount earned by the recipient across the financial year, and assumes what they earned in a year can simply be averaged across every fortnight of the payment. The court found that this is invalid. Not only did the government get the facts wrong; more significantly, the government of Australia has been told by the Federal Court, in consent orders, that the power to issue these robodebt notices doesn't exist. The power to issue every debt notice doesn't exist.

Before I discuss the import of this case further, I want to draw the attention of the Australian people and the parliament to the fact that the Federal Court issued consent orders. The nub of the consent orders is that the Commonwealth didn't argue against the plaintiff; they agreed. At the last minute, they agreed. The Commonwealth consented to orders which said that what they were doing was unlawful. They agreed it was illegal. The government agreed in the Amato proceeding that the algorithm they were using was not the valid basis on which to issue debt notices. They agreed that the debt notice issued to Ms Amato was not valid. The Commonwealth agreed that the garnishing of Ms Amato's tax return was unlawful. They agreed Ms Amato was owed interest on the tax payment which was garnished up until the date on which she received the tax payment. The government agreed that what they were doing was unlawful. But this comes a little late. Nine hundred thousand people have received these debt notices generated on an averaging of annual income and cursory and desultory checking.

If anyone says, 'Oh, well, they do a lot of checking,' let me tell you about the facts in Ms Amato's case. They sent a notice to her at an address at which she had not lived for three years. They then sent it by registered post and it was sent back to them—'doesn't live here'. So the government just kept sending notices to that address. Then they rang her. They left a message to ring, and didn't say what about. In the end, on the third call, they didn't even leave a message. On that basis they let the ship sail, on that cursory, perfunctory reversal of onus. This government has relied on speculative judgement by simply and arrogantly assuming that what one person earns in a year can be averaged over every fortnight, and therefore someone who has lumpy income and may be eligible for Centrelink in one fortnight and not another owes the Commonwealth money. No, they don't. And for the record, let us not pretend that the Commonwealth hasn't been told that these are problems. But now we have the reality of it.

Did you know that, if a bank sent hundreds of thousands of letters demanding money unlawfully, this government would eventually say something? They'd probably call for the CEO and the chair to go—not a bad idea. If this government presided over a scheme where people took their own lives as a result of the pressure, where mental harm is caused and where the stigma meant people couldn't get jobs because they carry debt notices, this government would complain. But this is actually what has happened with robodebt. Of course, we've got the poor old minister who says, 'I'm not going to apologise.' What he really means is that he's not going to apologise for the mistakes of his predecessors—but now it's on his watch.

Now we move to what needs to be done in the future. The government MPs sitting opposite will have constituents, like we will, who have received these robodebt notices. What are you in the government going to tell these people who've been served notices which may well be unlawful? What are you going to tell them to do? Are you going to tell them to seek a refund? Are you going to tell them to join a class action? Or are you going to tell them: 'No, go away. I'm not apologising for anything'? This is the question now arising out of this case. How long did the government know that it was unlawful? They consented at the Federal Court hearing. When did they form the view that this was unlawful?

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Road Safety and Freight Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was 2011.

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

The member for Wright, who I normally like, made the interjection '2011'. That's not true; no more lies from the government on this. Taking out the human fact-checking and simply relying on the algorithm happened on this government's watch. So how long did they know? Furthermore, if we move beyond 'how long did they know', how many people are affected by this? How much money will have to be refunded?

We've got the talkative minister here. This is now his problem. How much money will you spend hiring public servants that you got rid of to review the cases? How much money do you think you're going to have to pay back to people? The minister said, somewhat Morrison-esque, in shire-like language, that it's a small cohort. Well, how big is the cohort, Minister? And then you go further. Who is responsible for this mistake? How long will it take to pay the refunds? How much will you have to pay? Labor says, as a result of this case, that a wrong has been done to nearly one million people by its government behaving unlawfully. This is the government of Australia behaving unlawfully to hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. What a shame.

Fortnightly income averaging should never have been allowed to be the basis for Centrelink to determine that a debt existed. There was no onus on welfare recipients to establish they did not owe a debt based purely on fortnightly income averaging. The Commonwealth has breached its duty of care to vulnerable welfare recipients by alleging that robodebts were real debts when they weren't. The Commonwealth has been unjustly enriching itself under the robodebt scheme. It should refund the money it has taken unlawfully, plus interest. For the record with the class action: the Commonwealth is a model litigant. How long are they going to spend more taxpayer money fighting for an indefensible scheme, causing more pain and trauma for people who have been illegally treated? And, by the way, the Federal Court gave interest to Ms Amato for garnishing her tax. Every day the government doesn't fix the matter, it is probably costing the taxpayer another $100,000 a day in interest payments; that's bigger than your internet bill!

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has a lawful requirement to protect the integrity of the welfare system. The shadow minister is leaving the House! This issue is of such importance to him that he can't even be bothered to stay in the chamber for it! That says everything we need to know about the member for Maribyrnong's approach on this. It is all politics and no substance. He loves the press conference. He loves to stand there with the CFMMEU's sacked lawyers and say, 'We're standing up.' But when the opportunity comes for him to raise this as a matter of public importance, where is the member for Maribyrnong? Where is he? He's walked out the door and left a bunch of his little insignificant minions behind to carp from the backbench. Well, that says everything we need to know about the member for Maribyrnong.

Let me remind the House exactly why the member for Maribyrnong just scuppered out of here like a little boy who just wet his trousers. It's because of this media release from the member for Maribyrnong and the member for Sydney on 29 June 2011—from both of them, together. Let's read the media release, shall we? And let's come to understand exactly where online compliance and data matching came from. This was on 29 June 2011:

A new data matching initiative between Centrelink and the Australian Taxation Office is expected to claw back millions of dollars from welfare recipients who have debts with the Australian Government.

That's the first paragraph of a joint media release by the members for Sydney and Maribyrnong. It continues:

Minister for Human Services Tanya Plibersek and Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten today said the new initiative will enhance Centrelink’s debt recovery ability and is expected to recover more than $71 million over four years.

…   …   …   

Those who are identified as having debts and who haven't made repayment arrangements with Centrelink may have their tax refunds garnisheed when they lodge their income tax return.

…   …   …

"But if people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money."

That's it! That's where the joining of Centrelink and the ATO was started by those two members. Those two members who sit opposite here and jump up and down and yell that this is terrible commenced that process.

Last week, of course, the member for Maribyrnong and journalist Patricia Karvelas had an interview:

KARVELAS: You've spoken today about how much harm this program has done. Do you regret creating it and do you regret not opposing it before the election?

SHORTEN: Oh, Patricia, Patricia!

KARVELAS: That's a reasonable question, Labor created—

SHORTEN: Labor didn't create—

KARVELAS: No, Labor did create robodebt.

SHORTEN: No, well—

KARVELAS: I know; I've watched it. It did.

Those opposite love to say one thing when they aspire to be in government and another thing when they're in opposition.

Who could forget the good shadow minister, weeks before the election, making that fateful comment:

We want to make sure that people aren't receiving welfare to which they're not entitled to. And no one gets a leave pass on that.

So before the election, the then Leader of the Opposition and now shadow minister was saying that no-one would get a leave pass. After the election loss, apparently everyone gets a leave pass! Apparently, there is no longer a requirement for the Commonwealth to lawfully collect debts if no Australian speaks to the department. Apparently they get a leave pass. What else should we give a leave pass on? What else is optional? How about tax returns? Are tax returns now optional? Is that the next step that we'll go on?

Let's make it very, very clear: the federal government spends $180 billion of taxpayers' money to support Australia's social safety net—about a third of total annual government expenditure. The average Australian makes a contribution of $7,610 of their income to our welfare system, or just over nine per cent of their earnings. The Morrison government has not and will not lose sight of the fact that Australians contribute more than a month of their working year to support the welfare system. We're able to support that primarily because this side of the House is engaged with and knows how to operate a strong economy and ensure strong economic management.

A strong economy enables a strong welfare system. But right now, as of 31 October, 950,000 Australians have 1.6 million social welfare debts, totalling $5.3 billion. What those opposite want us to do is just give everyone a leave pass, apparently. Everyone gets a leave pass. Let's look at the leave passes that those opposite want to give. Those opposite sit there and wet their pants when someone comes along with hard questions. I see them over there now—a whole bunch of bedwetters. Right now there are 310,000 Newstart allowance recipients who have an amount of $1.121 billion owing. That was at 30 June this year. Do they get a leave pass? Do they, I ask bedwetters over there? Or do we have a lawful responsibility to protect the integrity of the welfare system and to ensure that the hard-earned money of taxpayers, which they pay in tax to the Commonwealth and from which welfare is provided, is provided sensibly to those who are in need in terms of welfare? According to the shadow minister, everyone now apparently gets a leave pass.

Labor's message right now is: don't engage with the Commonwealth, don't speak to them, because you get a leave pass. Don't bother engaging and saying, 'Here's some detail to substantiate the income that was earned and the welfare that was received.' That is the message that the Labor Party is giving now, and it is appalling. Australians rightly expect welfare recipients to receive the correct amount of support they're entitled to—nothing more, nothing less. Australians expect the right people to get the right amount of money at the right time. It was this government that ended Labor's lucky-dip approach to the ATO data-matching income compliance efforts, where literally hundreds of thousands of identified income data discrepancies and potential debts to taxpayers were simply ignored and simply not pursued. Our compliance activity is central to the community having trust in the administration of welfare payments and ensuring that the right people get the right amount of money at the right time.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's working really well!

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Macnamara is warned.

Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remember, we will continue to use data-matching to line up a tax return with the welfare an individual Australians has received as the basis to ascertain whether a debt may exist. Letters then go out to Australians and, for the benefit of the House I will read one again, as I've done previously in the House, but those opposite, with their tin ears, have clearly forgotten. Letters Australians receive sound like this:

We need you to check and update your past income information.

We need to make sure you received the right amount of payments from us in the past.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has given us information about how much income you earned from work in the past.

Why did they receive that? Because in 2011 those opposite commenced the joining up of Centrelink and the ATO. The letter continues:

The information from the ATO is different to the information you reported to us.

We need your help to check and update your information …

You need to do this even if you haven't received any Centrelink payments for a while.

That is the key. We will engage with Australians.

Last week, the Commonwealth made a refinement to this process so that income compliance will not be used solely to crystallise a debt from the Commonwealth and further proof points will be used. We are now going back, to ensure fairness and consistency for all Australians, to look at any decisions that have been made in that limited group who did not engage with the department at all, to connect with them and seek further proof points. My message to Australians is that my department will work through this sensibly and practically, and will be in contact with Australians from this limited group who may have been impacted.

This process began in 2011 under the Labor Party. Refinements have been made continually since that date and further refinements were made last week as we continue to operate one of the most targeted welfare systems in the world.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance brought by the member for Maribyrnong on the government's unlawful online compliance program, also known as robodebt. I'll start by correcting the record. The minister has called them 'refinements'. What the minister has done is remove the human oversight. It is not a refinement; it's a corruption. That's what they've done.

The Morrison government has been sprung illegally standing over the Australian public for millions of dollars with its toxic robodebt scheme. Something that we on this side of the House have suspected for some time and that Labor has been saying for months was handed down in a formal judgement by the Federal Court. It is now time for the government to stop spinning, stop denying there are any problems with the scheme and outline to the public how the ill-gotten funds will be repaid to the robodebt's innocent victims. The minister quoted from a sample letter that people receive. I also would like to quote from a letter; it was received by a DSP recipient. It said: 'At the moment, Task Force Integrity are talking to people in Long Jetty about how they can help us stop welfare fraud. We know that most people receiving a payment from Centrelink do the right thing by making sure their details are up to date.' This letter with an AFP crest on it was received by a grandmother who was the victim of a major motor vehicle accident and who lives in my electorate. This is the kind of heavy-handed letter that people receive.

The Federal Court yesterday handed down its decision on Deanna Amato's case, confirming that the government has no legal basis to extort money from its own citizens using its harsh, unfair algorithm, which the minister calls a refinement. Last week, the government conceded it is unlawful, by putting a freeze on its defining features—income averaging and reverse practical onus of proof—when it realised it couldn't come up with any legal argument to the Victorian legal aid matter. We know for a fact that the suspension of the scheme was a reaction to legal advice the government received in respect of the Amato court case and the looming Gordon legal class action. Clearly the minister doesn't want to hear what the Federal Court said.

This is long-delayed justice for Australians who have for the past three years suffered at the hands of the coalition's rogue robodebt. It has wrought a trail of carnage on Australians, including students, people with a disability and the unemployed—those in need of assistance, not a kick in the guts. Now Australians need answers. The Morrison government owes its citizens the courtesy of explaining how these people will be contacted and how they will be paid back. Just this Monday, Minister Stuart Robert declared in response to a question to the House that this government does not apologise for robodebt. Does it apologise now or does it disagree with the Federal Court?

Recently, I was contacted by Tanya, who is a 48-year-old single parent from my electorate. She lives in Bateau Bay. On 7 November she was sent two separate debt notices. One was for the period 2017-18, for $4,496, and one was for the period 2018-19, for $7,070. She was told that unless she repaid the entire date within one month—by 7 December—Centrelink would start garnishing her payments. However, she was not told how much would be garnished from her payments, leaving her in immense financial distress. What sort of Christmas are Tanya and her family going to have with this hanging over their heads?

Christian Porter acknowledged in his National Press Club address last week that the government had received new legal advice in light of the Federal Court actions. Naturally, there are some questions which arise from these concessions. Did the government fail to check robodebt was legal before they created the scheme? It is a rogue scheme that has sent letters to 900,000 people of whom the department has admitted that roughly 20 per cent resulted in no debt at all. Did the government receive advice but ignore its own counsel and decide to proceed with unjustly enriching itself at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society? Will the Attorney-General now apologise for robodebt, seeing as he refused to do so after a 2017 Senate inquiry found the scheme was destined to fail and should be suspended immediately? Now the scheme is finally being reversed. Even if the government omitted to check the scheme was legally watertight when they set it up, it's not as if they haven't had fair warning since. The Morrison government simply cannot claim they were ignorant of the shaky foundations of the scheme. They've had nearly three years of calls from legal figures, advocacy groups, community groups, unions, academics, two Commonwealth Ombudsman reports and three Senate inquiries. What more evidence do they need to know that this is illegal and that they are attacking the most vulnerable people in our society? They must apologise. They must pay the people back.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Road Safety and Freight Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this MPI, 'the government's unlawful online compliance program, also known as robodebt'. We get caught in this Canberra bubble. That's our job. We'll fight this out, absolutely. If anyone still listening into the broadcast of this debate takes anything away, please take away this: if you are in any doubt as to whether or not you are in breach with your Centrelink payments, my advice, and the advice of our government, is to please contact Centrelink and seek clarification from someone to put your mind at rest. If you've been contacted by someone to say that you're in the position of being garnisheed, and you think it is unlawful or heavy-handed, please contact Centrelink and clarify those points.

If the government has done anything as a result of a court action, I do take on the minister's earlier comments that we need to address it sensibly and practically to make sure that if there are wrongs then they are righted. It's important also to know that, in the conversation around those who potentially get caught up in this from a Centrelink perspective, there is probably more that unites this government and the opposition. If people have received, and continue to receive, payments that they know should not lawfully have come to them, I think both sides of the House are united in thinking that our welfare payment system is designed for those people who need it and is not designed or intended for those people who take advantage of the system.

We are a generous nation. We spend $180 billion on our social safety net, and we can and will continue to do that because we have a strong economy. We'll continue to make sure that those who are poor and vulnerable are looked after by this government. But right now, as of 31 October, over 950,000 Australians have 1.6 million social welfare debts, and the figure we're looking to recover in the area in question is about $5.3 billion. I reiterate the point that if you have been served with a debt and you think the debt has been miscalculated incorrectly, please contact Centrelink. Replace those unknowns and fears that you have so you can reduce those fears at Christmas.

I want to make a point before I run out of time. I did interrupt the member for Maribyrnong when he was giving his opening address. It was unparliamentary of me and I should not have done it. I should have waited until I got to the dispatch box to make my point. But there's been a fair bit in the media with reference to commentary from both the member for Sydney and the member who led the charge, and I'd like to read into the Hansard something linked to my comment, my interjection, about 2011, when they were in government. Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek are the godfather and godmother of the automated data-matching process, which they created in 2011. When jointly announcing Labor's new automated data-matching process, they said:

… if people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.

So this is not the first time language of our sort has been used in the public domain. They also said:

The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.

That was on 29 June 2011. Prior to that, the member for McMahon said:

It is important that the Government explores different means of debt recovery to ensure that those who have received more money than they are entitled to repay their debt.

Basically—and this is how I opened—those comments have all been mentioned by those on the other side. There is a way forward on this. There are more things that unite either side of this House around the retrieval of debt, and we'll right the wrongs. (Time expired)

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to assume that the member for Wright has read his side's briefing notes and is not deliberately trying to mislead the House. But I'm just going to clarify something here. This government is really good at being really loose with the truth when they get caught out—and they've been caught out with robodebt. The government has admitted that robodebt is illegal, as it settled a legal challenge before the courts. When they do that, the first thing they do is scream 'Labor, Labor, Labor!' It's hard to figure out what these ministers are for, because all they talk about is Labor. They try and blame Labor for something they introduced three years ago, which is unlawful and is nothing like what Labor did.

Let me explain something to the member for Wright. Labor introduced data-matching because data-matching became possible. It was a really smart, really clever thing to do. But when the data matched, a human being looked at the case and worked out whether there was a case to answer. A human being was involved. It was the Morrison government that removed the human being from the equation and turned the seeking of debt that was owed into what is now known as robodebt—'robodebt' because people were not involved. They did something unbelievably stupid. A grade 3 maths student would know that this wouldn't work, that's how stupid it is. They assumed that you could take the tax office figures of how much a person earned over a year and average it over a year in which a person received Centrelink benefits as if the person earned that money equally for the whole year. Let me put it this way: I started four or five years ago and I was unemployed for three months. I received Centrelink benefits for three months, I told Centrelink when I worked and everything was above board and fine. Then I got a job, went off Centrelink benefits and earned $20,000 for the rest of that financial year, but this crazy group of people allowed robodebt to average that $20,000 and assume that I earned $400 for every week that I was unemployed. It is dumb. It was never going to work, it was always going to be ruled illegal, you were always going to have to pay back money you didn't owe, you were always going to be sprung.

For three years, virtually everybody has been telling you that. Once again it is the arrogance of: 'We're right, we don't have to listen. We're going for the surplus. Never mind if we are raining carnage on people who don't owe any money.' And now, of course, it's 'a minor refinement' and it's 'a small cohort'. Well, 900,000 letters have gone out for robodebt. Human Services says 600,000 of them were based on this flawed and now illegal system and 20 per cent of the debts were found not to be owed. That's not counting all the people that paid it because they couldn't deal with it. That's not counting all the people who, because of their life circumstances or because they simply couldn't prove they didn't have a debt, paid it. You've got to remember that robodebt sends a letter—with no people attached—and tells you the government believes you owe it money, and you have to prove you don't. The government doesn't come to you and say, 'You owe the debt because of this and this,' you have to prove that you don't. I have a person here who paid back $52,000. He doesn't believe he owes it. He was working part time and receiving a part disability support pension. He was reporting his income as he needed to do. He simply cannot provide the figures. They're asking for records of bank accounts that he closed over seven years ago. This is a person who believed he was doing everything right. He paid that $52,000. And there are many, many more. We all hear the stories of people who paid because they couldn't face it. They couldn't handle the stress of it. We know that. We heard from families whose loved ones have basically collapsed because of this. Another person, Rahwa, had a debt of $52,000, according to the government. We looked at it and thought, 'That's not right.' We got in touch with the minister. Entire debt waived. Wrong. 'Sorry we sent you a debt letter for $52,000, Rahwa. We got it wrong.'

This has been a debacle. Again, anybody who thinks about what it is would understand that it cannot work. Centrelink calculates what you receive on a fortnightly basis, based on your income in a fortnight, and the tax office only has figures for the year. They cannot be compared. It's comparing apples and oranges. It was stupid. The court has finally called you out and you are going to have to pay a hell of a lot of it back.

Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal government spends over $180 billion to support Australia's social safety net, about a third of Australia's total government expenditure annually. Australian taxpayers foot the bill of around $111 billion of social security payments as part of this. Taxpayers—in fact, all citizens—rightly expect that those engaged in the system are able to receive the amount of support for which they are eligible, nothing less but also nothing more. As of just the end of last month, over 950,000 Australians had 1.6 million social welfare debts totalling $5.3 billion. Recovering overpayments is a fundamental part of our welfare system and a fundamental duty of the government. When someone has a debt, the government is legally obliged to pursue recovery of that debt, just as the government is obliged to pursue recovery of tax debts when people have failed to pay their full tax liability. This debt recovery process has been a feature of our welfare system for over 30 years through successive governments.

As announced last week, the government has taken action to amend the income compliance program. The Minister for Government Services last week announced further refinements as part of the government's ongoing commitment to continually strengthen and improve the program. The program has already undergone a number of iterations and refinements since its inception in response to community feedback, and I anticipate it will continue to do so. The changes announced by the minister last week will make the program more robust by requiring additional evidence when using income information to identify potential overpayments. This means a debt will no longer be raised where the only information the department is relying on is the averaging of ATO information. However, income compliance activities are not ceasing and nor should they. The department will still review payments for discrepancies. For those debts raised to date which the department calculated solely through income averaging, debt recovery will be frozen and the debt will be reassessed with additional information. Services Australia will contact affected customers as they are identified. This process will take time as individual records will be checked, particularly for complex cases. Most of these cases will be ones where people did not fully engage with the department after they were initially sent the discrepancy notice. For reviews that are underway, the department will continue to work with customers to complete those reviews.

Decision-making going forward will not rely on income-averaging as the sole basis to determine the debts. The decision will not, however, affect the government's use of data-matching between income reported to DHS and that reported to the ATO to seek clarification of income whilst receiving a welfare payment. The department will continue to use income-averaging as part of a range of options to ask a welfare recipient to engage with DHS if there is a discrepancy. Importantly—and this is worth stressing—people can and should always ask to review decisions or provide new information at any stage of the process. The government has a responsibility to collect any overpayments. This is central to the community having trust in the administration of this safety net. We will maintain the government's focus on returning overpayments to our taxpayers and balance this with fairness and transparency in our compliance activities.

Members of the House will recall that it was those opposite who announced in 2011 Labor's automatic data-matching processes, beginning the joining of the data streams between the ATO and Centrelink. A joint press release on 29 June 2011 by the member for Sydney and the member for Maribyrnong, titled 'New data matching to recover millions in welfare dollars', announced the scheme. The member for Sydney is quoted in that press release saying:

… if people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.

The member for Maribyrnong is quoted in the same press release saying:

The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.

It is also worth noting that the opposition refused to commit to abolishing the current system during the election campaign.

The debt recovery process has been a feature of our welfare system for over 30 years through successive governments. There is nothing sinister about this. Government funds are not unlimited and they ultimately all come from the taxpayer. The average Australian who works contributes over $7,600 of their income, or one month of their earnings, towards welfare payments, and every dollar of overpayment to one welfare recipient is $1 less available for other welfare recipients; it's $1 less available for other worthy causes, like listing new medicines on the PBS or supporting the National Disability Insurance Scheme or responding to the findings of the aged-care royal commission.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I start by commending the shadow minister and the member for Maribyrnong, who was so diligent in pursuing this issue over recent weeks and months and who has brought the government to account on a shameful scheme. Can I also commend the earlier speakers on my side, the members for Dobell and Parramatta. But mostly, can I commend ordinary Australians, like Deanna Amato—the real Australians who are holding this government to account. Can I commend Deanna Amato for having the courage to go to court to show that what this government has done to a scheme that had been working effectively is to make it not only grotesque and inhuman but unlawful.

Let's return to the beginning of this MPI discussion, to what can only be described as a rather disturbing, bizarre and insensitive speech by the minister. It was a speech which you would not have expected to have been delivered by somebody who had just lost a court case which showed that the scheme that had been working is now, shamefully, putting thousands of Australians at a massive disadvantage—and these are our most disadvantaged Australians. If you had heard that speech and all of the frothing at the mouth and all of the abuse he hurled at others, you would expect he was the one who had been wronged, not Deanna Amato. It was a bizarre performance from a man who cannot stand to be shown up. I expect that, if Deanna Amato were in the chamber, she may have copped a bit of abuse.

And I go back to one of the comments by the member for Wright—that this is a bubble issue. Of all the things I've talked about today, of all the things I've talked about this week, this is the least characterisable as a bubble issue. To reinforce that point, I go back to some quotes by Deanna Amato. After winning her case against the government, against the minister's scheme, she said:

You can feel so small and helpless next to the government, but I am so glad that the unfair and ultimately unlawful aspects of this system have been brought to light.

She also said:

I've proven my innocence—

She shouldn't have to prove her innocence, because she'd done nothing wrong—

… but also proven that there are reasons why you need all the facts before you can demand debt payments from people …

Here we have the words of a real person living in non-Canberra-bubble Australia. Those opposite should not be so quick to dismiss this issue when they have been shown to have ruined a scheme that worked sensibly and cautiously in their brazen rush to bring more dollars into their coffers.

Fortunately, after the minister spoke, the tone calmed down, but there was a certain intellectual dishonesty of the speakers that followed—the member for Wright and the member for Wentworth—who harped on about the point that there are going to be no free passes and that all they're doing is trying to collect money rightfully owed to the government. But let's go back to the comments of Deanna Amato: 'I've proven my innocence.' The whole point here is that we have a scheme which has had the human element taken out and the onus of proof shoved onto people in a very intimidatory way that is not only insensitive and shameful but unlawful. And those opposite act as if nothing's happened: 'Nothing to look at here! There are not tens of thousands of Australians disadvantaged in an unlawful way. We're just collecting appropriate debts.' No, you're not.

What you've done is taken a scheme that everybody in this place agrees should occur—yes, we should have different government departments talking to each other and, if there has been an appropriately identified debt, let's approach that debt in a sensitive, appropriate way. What we have said from the start is that it is not appropriate to change that system by taking human checking out of it. It is not appropriate to change that system in such a way that the likelihood of errors goes through the roof. In fact, we don't even know how many errors there have been through that system. And it is not appropriate to change that system in a way which changes the onus of proof and makes Australians feel like criminals and shames them simply for, at some point in their life, taking part in a welfare system which I hope everybody in this place would agree is an important part of our social safety net.

So, to the speakers who followed the minister and his rather rabid speech: no, this is not an issue of whether or not it is appropriate to collect debts. This is about whether the system that does that should be appropriate and sensitive and done in a way which does not make mistakes and does not put the burden onto Australians who already have too many burdens put on them by this shameful government.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to have a discussion about Labor's robodebt scheme. I welcome the opportunity to actually address the truth about this important issue and the legacy originating back to the very member who complained about it just now in this chamber. The reality is that this system was introduced by the Labor Party. This is one of the great untruths that sits at the heart of this discussion, in the member for Maribyrnong's regular commentary in the public square and in his constant effort to distance himself from the legacy of the scheme that he introduced, and then to hold this government to account rather than take a modicum of responsibility.

There is no better example of this than the recent interview the member for Maribyrnong had with Patricia Karvelas on ABC Radio. I'm going to try and do my best Patricia Karvelas impersonation—and perhaps even my best member-for-Maribyrnong impersonation, but I'm not so rehearsed:

KARVELAS: You've spoken today about how much harm this program has done. Do you regret creating it and do you regret not opposing it before the election?

SHORTEN: Oh, Patricia, Patricia!

KARVELAS: That's a reasonable question, Labor created—

SHORTEN: Labor didn't create—

KARVELAS: No, Labor did create robodebt.

SHORTEN: No, well—

KARVELAS: I know; I've watched it. It did.

When you've got the ABC calling out the member for Maribyrnong for dishonesty and for misleading the public, and then he comes and does it inside the parliament as well, you've got to wonder what the basis of their argument is beyond them wanting to distract. For him to come up to the dispatch box to audition for a rehearsal for taking on the lead role—that is the reality of what we've seen today.

I'm actually surprised the Leader of the Opposition allowed this MPI to be moved, because it gave the member for Maribyrnong an opportunity to come up to the dispatch box and show that he could at least cobble together a coherent sentence and that he is actually capable of prosecuting an argument. I don't agree he should be in that job either, but you've got to pay deference where it's due and acknowledge talent where it's due. What's really clear is that he hasn't changed his mindset from the election. He went to the last election with a platform saying that we needed more than $387 billion of new taxes imposed on Australian taxpayers. What he doesn't seem to have any regard for is the $180 billion that's paid out, by Australian taxpayers, for a degree of social equity to help those people in need. He is not interested in following up or making sure that that money is spent, or, if there is an inappropriate allocation, recovering that money for taxpayers. He'd rather just go and hit people's hip pockets again and again and again. That's the legacy.

The really tragic part of this motion today is the stories that sit behind it of what happens when people have a problem. The reality is that people did have a problem with the system—and there were people who did. They came into the Goldstein electorate office, and we sat down, worked through the issues, contacted Centrelink, worked through the department and got as best a resolution as possible. What we did was actually try to solve people's problems. Sometimes it didn't happen as quickly as we wanted, but we got to where we needed to go in every case. Compare that to what Labor members did when a person who had a problem with the system came to them for help. Their first response wasn't: 'How can we help? Can we contact the department? Can we solve a problem?' Their first response every single time was: 'You've got a problem? How would you like to go and talk to the media about it?' What they did was use vulnerable people as puppets for their nefarious political agenda to get at the government. That is the most low-down, despicable act anybody can engage in. That is disgraceful behaviour—using people as human fodder and pawns in their despicable political games to fight their own scheme. That's why people on this side of the chamber have no regard or respect for their narrative and no regard for the dishonesty that they bring into this place. That's why, at every point, the Australian people see through the charade of the opposition and the agenda that they raise. That's why we will continue to fight, because we are not only fighting for the people who need assistance and support, who are vulnerable and who we make sure we give assistance to when they need it; we're also fighting for the Australian taxpayers and public, who they have no regard for and take no interest in.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think we need to take the tone of this argument today down, because we are talking about real people. We've had impersonations. We've had impressions. I'll give the chamber a tip: it's pretty easy to do an impression of the member for Goldstein. 'Why aren't I a minister? I should be a minister! I need to be a minister now!' Insert that in every speech.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

His colleagues are laughing. I must have struck a nerve there, just a tad. But my money's always on the quiet ones, the member for Fairfax and the member for Boothby. I know who's circling around the minister, Angus Taylor, who's next in line; it's not the member for Goldstein.

In closing the argument today, it's been really interesting. We've heard a lot of bluster, insults and personal attacks. We've heard a lot, of course, about, 'Labor started the scheme eight or nine years ago so it's all Labor's fault, even though we've been in government six years.' But what we haven't heard at all from one member of the government is: 'We got it wrong, and we apologise to the hundreds of thousands of people.' The member for Goldstein said, 'Well, they would just come to my office, and we would talk to someone and it would all get fixed.' That didn't happen. What alternative universe do they live in? I will tell you what did happen: when people did go public and went to the media, magically, it was solved. I know that when you write to this minister you don't get a response. I've got letters to the minister, Stuart Robert, where he has not responded once—not once—on behalf of constituents. Do they think that's acceptable—that a member of parliament can write to a minister and not get an acknowledgment?

Honourable members interjecting—

He's agreeing with me, so I'll give him 10 out of 10. I bet if he was the minister, Minister Goldstein would write back to me.

Honourable members interjecting—

He'd do anything to become a minister; we know that. In the other audition that we heard today—from the member for Wentworth, who was complaining that he wasn't made a minister after the election—the defence that we heard time and time again was not about real people and was not about individual cases. They weren't talking about people. There were certainly no apologies.

We know that it was through the leadership of the member for Maribyrnong talking about this issue, coming to forums, sitting down with people and working hard to get the government to take a position on this—on the toxic robodebt which they were in charge of and which they oversaw. Time and time again they said, 'There's nothing to see here; we know best.' All those snobs opposite—through you, Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan—who were looking down on people on welfare continue in today's debate to lecture us about the lifters and the leaners and all those people.

We on this side have a completely different approach. When people don't deserve treatment from a government, we speak out. We say it is not good enough. We saw that time and time again—the families, the pensioners, the grandmothers and the grandfathers who worked their entire lives paid their taxes and did the right thing, only for this greedy and selfish government to use some sort of shady and back-alley type of behaviour to scare people into paying money. The onus of proof was on the person with the debt. I sat with people who allegedly owed thousands of dollars. Do you know what? We did ring the department and we did make representations, and we were told that they still owed the money. They didn't owe a dollar. Not one member of the government can get up and apologise to those people. I know—through you, Mr Deputy Speaker—that you all had those people in your own electorates. They were are all coming into your offices. I bet you secretly sat with them and said: 'Oh, I'm not really sure why this happened. I've got to look into it for you. Oh, gee, the minister needs to lift their game.' Not one of you spoke out on behalf of them—not once. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Thousands of ordinary, hardworking Australians were punished, and then a court of law found that you acted illegally. Not one of them had the decency to get up in today's debate and apologise for what they put tens of thousands of people through. I say: shame on members of the government. When I was growing up I was taught by my parents that when you made a mistake you owned up to it and apologised for it. We know that doesn't happen with the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction. We know that he can't even bear to look anyone in the face and say, 'I stuffed up.' It's always someone else's fault to this government. I'm glad the court case has happened. I'm glad the Labor Party has stood up to the government. We will continue to do it every single day of this term.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's been a very long week, and tempers are fraying at the end of a very busy week, but we are continuing to do what people put us here to do, and that is to be wise and sage with the way we manage taxpayers' dollars. It's not our money; it's their money. It is taxpayers' money. Governments don't have their own money; we are managing theirs. Income compliance measures are the duty and responsibility of any government.

People in this chamber can sometimes be selective in the way they rewrite history. We can all play that game. There was a bit of schadenfreude and a bit of own-goal activity by the member for Maribyrnong today when he brought in this MPI. I had the opportunity of going back through the records, and the member for Maribyrnong, the member for Sydney and the member for McMahon have multiple quotations regarding their initiation and almost their pride in instituting a robodebt program and automation. Speakers on the other side have referenced the court case. We've all read about Deanna Amato, and well done her. It's a question of the young, little person beats the giant—David and Goliath, except it's Deanna and Goliath. It has proved a point. But this automation, which is meant to be the sin of this side of parliament, actually happened in 2011. The member for Sydney said on 29 June 2011:

If people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.

The member for Maribyrnong himself said:

The automation of this process—

these are his own words—

will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.

The member for McMahon mentioned:

It is important that the Government explores different means of debt recovery to ensure that those who have received more money than they are entitled to repay their debt.

We are responsible for managing income support for 950,000 people. That's $180 billion. That is a huge slice out of all taxpayers' incomes, so it's our duty to monitor and do this. There have been refinements over many years, even including refinements by the party that initiated this, and that is the other side. In fact, compliance activities have been going for 30 years. This is not new; it's just that, as I said, refinements have been made.

Human review does occur in current processes. The people who have discrepancies identified are sent a letter, they have to engage in the process and they are given the opportunity to correct the data that has been collected about them. I too, like many on the other side and many on this side, have had members of the public who got a real shock when they got the letter. But compounding it by not engaging in the process has, in the past, made it worse for them. The system does have an ability for them to appropriately update their data, and then the good officers of Services Australia—talking, walking, breathing people; not computers—assess it and the process moves on from there.

The other thing that we've got to remember is that people have said this wouldn't happen in any other business. That's got some verity to a degree, but the Social Security Act does empower the department to convert an overpayment into a debt. That's why the initial letter talks about a debt.

It is part of our duty as a government to observe what taxpayers are paying, obviously. We have a tax compliance system, and we have a compliance system to monitor the support we give people who are going through a period in their life when they need support. Compliance is part of life, particularly when you look at the amount of money that we commit— (Time expired)

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lyne will resume his seat.