Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The report of the robodebt royal commission made it clear. Strong and effective oversight mechanisms are fundamental to safeguard the community in their dealings with government. Trust in government depends on this.

The robodebt royal commission concluded that the robodebt scheme was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal.

Stronger scrutiny may have prevented the scheme's continuance.

But the royal commission found that institutional checks and balances that should have raised serious questions about the robodebt scheme were ineffective. Under the former Liberal government, these checks and balances were intentionally blocked.

The government's response to the royal commission committed to improving public trust in government. It recognised the importance of impartial, independent and robust oversight to deliver on this commitment.

This bill delivers on recommendations of the robodebt royal commission. It will bolster the powers and capabilities of oversight agencies to ensure a failure like the robodebt scheme can never happen again, because central to the institutional checks and balances that could have made a difference to the outcomes of the robodebt scheme are independent and external oversight bodies.

Oversight makes our institutions stronger. Oversight makes our democracy better. And most importantly, oversight keeps government agencies accountable to the people they serve.

For these reasons, the government is introducing amendments to the Ombudsman Act to ensure that Commonwealth agencies are subject to stronger and more rigorous oversight.

The bill

This bill recognises the importance of ensuring the Ombudsman has the necessary legislative powers to undertake full, independent and transparent investigations.

The robodebt royal commission made two recommendations for legislative change to the Ombudsman Act.

First was that a statutory duty be imposed on departmental secretaries and agency heads to ensure their department or agency uses its best endeavours to assist the Ombudsman in an investigation. The royal commission also recommended that a corresponding duty be imposed on the part of Commonwealth public servants.

The bill implements this recommendation in full, but it goes further than this. The bill extends the statutory duty to assist the Ombudsman to all of the Ombudsman's functions.

This means that agencies will be required to assist regardless of whether the Ombudsman is making preliminary inquiries, conducting an investigation, or following up on implementation of its recommendations.

In doing so, the bill reinforces the responsibility of heads of agencies to ensure their agency acts in good faith and proactively assists the Ombudsman in the performance of all of its functions. By imposing this duty on the staff of agencies, the bill also ensures the responsibility to assist the Ombudsman is clearly individually borne by all those in the Public Service.

The second recommendation for legislative change was that the Ombudsman be conferred with a power requiring Commonwealth agencies to provide all reasonable facilities and assistance to the Ombudsman when the Ombudsman exercises its power to access an agency's records.

Amendments in the bill deliver on the full intent of this recommendation. The bill ensures that the Ombudsman has strong powers to obtain full, free and direct access to agency records as part of an investigation.

To further enhance the Ombudsman's ability to access an agency's records, the bill also specifically empowers the Ombudsman to obtain access to records remotely. These amendments ensure that the Ombudsman has a modern suite of effective information-gathering powers to keep agencies accountable.

While most agencies engage in good faith with the Ombudsman, the findings of the robodebt royal commission made it clear that the Ombudsman should not have to be reliant on this assumption.

The amendments made by the bill will ensure that the Ombudsman does not need to depend on government agencies to undertake searches and provide documents and information in the course of an investigation.

The new and enhanced duties and powers in the bill will be extended to apply in respect of all statutory offices of the Ombudsman under the act, such as the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman, the Postal Industry Ombudsman and the Overseas Students Ombudsman. This means that, whether they are dealing with Commonwealth agencies or other sectors such as private health, postal or education providers, the public can have confidence that the Ombudsman has effective oversight powers.

The government also recognises the importance of the Inspector-General of Taxation and Taxation Ombudsman in providing assurance to the community that taxation laws are being administered with integrity. The bill implements the commitment in the government response to the robodebt report to introduce equivalent amendments for the inspector-general as for the Ombudsman.

Conclusion

Strong institutions are fundamental to the key mandate of government—meeting the needs of the community that it exists to serve.

The public must be confident that government agencies are acting with integrity and accountability and that they act in a manner that is lawful, fair and transparent.

The government has committed to improve this public trust.

This bill bolsters the powers and capability of oversight bodies to ensure that government agencies are accountable.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.