Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. What impact has the robodebt scheme had on the mental health and wellbeing of Australians? Why is it important for those who created the scheme to take responsibility?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend for his question. It's an important question, because the report of the royal commission into robodebt puts beyond doubt what the Labor Party and so many other organisations have been saying since 2016, that this was, to use the words of the royal commission, and I quote:

… an extraordinary saga, illustrating a myriad of ways that things can go wrong through venality, incompetence and cowardice.

More than 400,000 Australians were unfairly targeted and pursued by their own government. Many of them were already vulnerable, including through mental illness. As the College of Psychiatrists said to the royal commission: 'Robodebt has unjustifiably stigmatised claimants with mental health conditions, compounded their suffering and placed extra strain upon their families and carers.' And as the Prime Minister said, we all saw that through people visiting and calling into our electorate offices—I'm sure across both sides of this House.

The former government gave no leeway over the years. For some, tragically, the pressure was simply too much to bear, and lives were lost. As the commission said, 'The ill-effects of the scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continuing.' You'd think that this might lead the member for Cook to take some lessons from this, but he clearly hasn't. Yesterday he blamed the public servants, calling back to mind that familiar refrain from 2021: 'That's not my job.' He blamed the royal commission process: it was somehow vindictive. That was from a government that said to those vulnerable Australians: 'We'll find you, we'll track you down and you may end up in prison.'

Perhaps it's a triumph of hope over experience to expect the member for Cook to take any responsibility for his actions, but what does it say about the Leader of the Opposition that he chose last night to back the member for Cook's delusional view of that saga instead of fronting up to the damage that it caused to so many vulnerable Australians and standing alongside them. The message it does send to all those Australians grappling with poverty, with homelessness, with unemployment and with mental illness is that the Leader of the Opposition and his party have learned nothing and that in their view they did nothing wrong.