House debates
Wednesday, 22 March 2023
Statements
Personal Explanation
3:34 pm
Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Speaker, I'd like to make a personal explanation.
Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Do you claim to have been misrepresented?
Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
During question time, the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, in her answer, made some spurious allegations about the processes and integrity of the previous government with regard to allocating money to local government. I wish to point out that, under the government that I was a minister in, we had record funding for local roads and community infrastructure. There were extra rounds of Roads to Recovery and Roads of Strategic Importance. If the minister doesn't know the answer to a question, she should just sit down, rather than try and cast aspersions on previous governments.
3:35 pm
Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
RT () (): I seek leave to make two personal explanations.
Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Once again, I do.
Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The Minister for Government Services said today that no-one responded to Mrs Madgwick's correspondence. As I told the House on 1 December 2020, Mrs Madgwick's son's debt was lawfully raised. It was not a robodebt; it was not part of the robodebt cohort. I also made the point at the time that at that point—and it's probably not dissimilar now—a million Australians owed a total of $5 billion. The department gets one escalation of serious harm every single day. Notwithstanding that, the department contacted Mrs Madgwick. I went and personally reviewed the correspondence in phone calls between my department and every call to her son. I reviewed the text to ensure my department was acting appropriately. A deputy secretary for my department went and visited Mrs Madgwick in her lounge room to talk her through the lawful basis on which the debt was raised.
On the second matter, the Prime Minister said that, once I'd been informed that robodebt was unlawful, we continued to raise debts. That is incorrect. I'd been sworn in as a minister, and within something like 39 days I'd asked for legal advice, noting none had been given. As soon as that legal advice was given to me, within two hours, I walked into the Prime Minister's office and closed it down. Of the apparently one million records that have been provided to the royal commission, you will not find a single document that shows that any legal advice to the contrary was provided to me.