Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Government Services. At the recent public hearings of the royal commission into robodebt, what have we learned about the former coalition government's shameful robodebt scheme?

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

I'd like to express gratitude to the work of the robodebt royal commission so far for uncovering evidence which would not have otherwise been available to the Australian people. Some of that evidence shows that, by the middle of 2017, the former coalition government was well and truly aware of robodebt's many problems. As I updated the House yesterday, there were literally tens of thousands of articles in the media, several hundred mentions in parliament and countless representations made to MPs and senators on all sides; there was the missing million-dollar report, which was shelved, inconveniently, before it could be provided, but, most importantly, the former government were on notice from the victims bravely sharing their own stories.

Despite this, I can advise that, from 1 July 2017, a total of 764,000 Australians who had received welfare payments in the past were unlawfully accused of defrauding the government and slapped with robodebt notices. Of these, 438,000 were subsequently notified that there was an apparent discrepancy during the scheme but did not have a debt raised against them. However, the remaining 416,000 Australians were still issued unlawful robodebts after July 2017. If the coalition government had heeded these repeated, numerous, well-documented warnings and stopped the robodebt scheme at that stage, 764,000 of our fellow Australians would never have been subjected to this stressful, unlawful behaviour by their own government.

Not only did the Morrison government continue with this illegal scheme for more than three years until it was only eventually stopped by a class action in November of 2020; we know from evidence at the recent hearings of the royal commission that they were continually dismissive of the warnings. What if the Morrison government had not ignored the repeated warnings? What if they had actually published the $1 million report? What if they had heeded the pleas of the victims? Could this illegal scheme have ended in July 2017? We will never know—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Fremantle is warned. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?

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

Again, this minister is trespassing into the territory that you have rightly warned against, drawing conclusions, which is the work of the royal commission rather than reporting on evidence, and the risk is that this creates an impression of prejudicing the work of the royal commission, because the minister is saying publicly what he wants—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I reminded the House and the minister yesterday that I was uncomfortable about members and ministers giving their opinions—and I asked them to refrain—about the evidence. I asked the minister to continue with his answer to make it clear to the House that he was referring to evidence within the royal commission.

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

Despite the protestations of the opposition, it is a fact that the scheme was illegal. It is a fact that 764,000 Australian citizens—who pay the opposition's wages, by the way—were unlawfully served with debt notices. The point that really remains, in conclusion, is simply this. The architects of robodebt believed that the ends justified the means. The only remaining question for me is: when will all the architects at the top of the robodebt tree take full accountability and take full culpability and responsibility for the most illegal administrative scheme run by any government in the history of the Commonwealth?