Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been a lot of conversation about the public's loss of faith in government across recent years. I want to say that I very much welcome the royal commission into the robodebt scandal, because I believe it might build back some faith in government if we get to the bottom of how that atrocity was committed by the former government.

I want to thank the member for Maribyrnong, the current minister, for his work in opposition to ensure that this happened and for his fight across those years—from 2015 through to November 2019. I know that I sat in my office in Werribee with many residents who had received these illegal, as we can say now, robodebt notices. This is what causes a lack of faith by the public: when governments do unconscionable things. I look forward to the findings of the royal commission, but I don't need a royal commission, and neither do my constituents, to know that many of them received notices of debt they didn't owe and that we had a government that persisted with a scheme that was illegal, was shown to be illegal and which hurt so many. Four hundred thousand Australians received these debt notices—400,000 of our fellow citizens! I hope that this royal commission builds some faith back in the government by the public.