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

My question is to the Prime Minister: The government's social security law guide, which was released on 10 February this year, states:

Australian Government employees have a duty of care to the public when performing their duties.

But government lawyers, on 14 February this year, stated, in the robodebt class action, that the policy is that the government does not owe Centrelink recipients a duty of care. Prime Minister, does the government owe a duty of care to Centrelink recipients?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll tell you about the duty of care we have to the Australian people, including those who depend on their social services payments, which enable them to deal with the great difficulties in their lives and particularly at a time like this—at a time like this when the country is facing some very difficult challenges. I refer specifically to the impacts of the bushfires and the coronavirus. It means more and more Australians, because of the automatic stabilisers of social security payments which go to those who have been impacted by the economic shocks that we're now experiencing. What they deserve from a government is to be able to pay their bills, and we can ensure that we can make the payments that we can make to them, as we have. We ensure we do that. One of the ways as a government is being able to ensure that people can rely on the services of the essentials that the government delivers, whether it's their Centrelink payments, other support payments or their aged-care payments. You need to know how to manage money, and that means that, when you're making payments to those who deserve them, you pay them what they're entitled to.