Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the third interim report. I am very pleased to see that the Senate has supported the recommendation of the report that the government's public interest immunity claim be rejected. There is a very, very good argument about why it should be rejected that was put on the record by Senator Siewert just then. In essence, why we should support the recommendation of this report is because this government is permanently addicted to covering up and hiding the truth from Australians through a litany of announcements and failures of delivery and, in this instance, with regard to robodebt, a gross failure of fair and decent government of this nation. The robodebt program was responsible for the destruction of lives, for untold financial and emotional anguish and for the systematic harassment of some of the most vulnerable members of the Australian community—and for what? To prop up Scott Morrison's budget bottom line to sell a few kitschy 'back in black' mugs. That's how cynical this government is.

This report that's been tabled this afternoon and whose recommendations have been adopted here in the Senate is the third report of the income compliance inquiry regarding the public interest immunity claims the government has trotted out, another example of this government's war on transparency and accountability. These public interest immunity claims, as presented previously in letters from the minister, are a repeat of the pattern that we see: conceal, repeat, conceal, repeat, conceal, repeat. That is all this minister knows.

Minister Stuart Robert argued previously and again in recent days that there would be specific harm to the public interest if legal advice that he had used to establish robodebt was made public.

The great harm that's been done to the Australian public has been done by their own government pushing onto hundreds of thousands of Australians debts that were unlawfully raised by their own government—an attack on the citizens of this country by this Liberal-National party government. The claim that it is against the interests of the public of Australia to know what the government knew when they concocted and inflicted this terrible scheme on Australia is a sham. Nearly half a million debts were sent out and nearly a billion dollars in payments were refunded due to legally insufficient grounds for the program, and this government continues to say that the advice at the very heart of this omnishambles is not in the public interest. That claim and the cheek of it are just outrageous.

As more Australians than ever are using Services Australia, and while under this Liberal National Party government we head into a deep recession for the first time in a generation, we need to restore confidence in the department and the minister more than at any other time in living memory. The report of this inquiry tabled yesterday complements the tabling of the report this afternoon. Yesterday's tabled report showed that robodebt had grievously undermined Australia's trust in government services. That trust will only be further undermined by the government's continuing lack of accountability. This report wisely recommends that this paper-thin excuse be rejected and that the minister representing the Minister for Government Services table the relevant documents requested by the inquiry or provide an explanation to the Senate as to the minister's failure to table these documents. I'm pleased again to put on the record that the Senate has just voted in support of the report of the community affairs committee to make sure that this government comes into this chamber and tells the truth. I know it'll be new. I know it'll be novel. We should be able to sell tickets to that—if only people could get in the building! The Australian people are yearning for the truth, not for more robodebt and more of the same from this government.

The second interim report of this inquiry, tabled yesterday, went to the heart of the legality of the problem. It tells us what the government should have known: that average income isn't real income, and that using income averaging to subsequently support raising an overpayment debt has never amounted to sufficient evidence of a debt under social security law. It never did until this lot, this shameful government, inflicted their fake debts and all the damage they did on the Australian people. Robodebt particularly affected workers with itinerant employment. It affected workers who are casual labourers. It affected workers who are in the short-term unemployment market. It affected students whose peripatetic jobs left them eligible for support payments but vulnerable to the very tool that the government sought to use to exploit and get money from those who could pay the least. Minister Morrison, as the Treasurer, thought he could get $2.1 billion, and he bragged about it to his mates. 'I've got this great new scheme. We're going to average income and we'll rake in the dollars.' That's what they did. They got advice. They inflicted this pain and suffering on the Australian people and they need to pay for that at the next election.

Those eligible for support payments were the most vulnerable to averaging and they were the most affected. I recall the case of a building labourer constantly in search of work who came to my office on the Central Coast after receiving a robodebt for over $10,000. To a casual labourer, that $10,000 is a lot of money. With the support of my office, that debt was subsequently reduced to a tiny fraction of that amount once a proper review had taken place. Thank God that labourer had enough sense to come and get support from his duty senator. The problem was that so many Australians totally freaked out when they got a letter from the government, accepted that the government couldn't possibly give them a fake debt and just paid the money. They just paid. They trusted the government, and their trust was abused. Yesterday's report recommends that Services Australia immediately review its evidentiary responsibilities for raising overpayment debts in all of its compliance programs, as well as recommending an independent review into the policy, design, administration and impact of Centrelink's compliance program, including the Income Compliance Program.

We demand, on behalf of the Australian people, more evidence, not less—not cover up, not hiding, not public interest immunity claims, not the nonsense, the shame, the lies, the disgraceful behaviour that we consistently see from this government. The government knows what it did was wrong. It relied on insufficient legal advice to unleash a predatory program on our most vulnerable Australians. We then saw the government spend $34 million on legal fees, trying to cover their tracks and to fight inevitable lawsuits. It concocted bogus public interest immunity claims to hide the legal advice used to create and sustain the program.

As recently as last month, the secretary of the department responsible for robodebt remarked that she didn't even know what the term 'robodebt' meant. That is the depth of denial that exists in the government and in those they have serving them. The Public Service is called the 'Public Service' because it's supposed to serve the public, not the government of the day and the cover-up that is characteristic of this robodebt scheme at every turn. The department responsible, worst of all, denied the testimony of two brave mothers of young men who took their own lives after being harassed endlessly by debt collectors. The department, representing this government, refused to acknowledge the ultimate pain that they inflicted on these families—all this for the bottom line of the budget, for a campaign ad and for a few bits of merchandise.

The work of this inquiry isn't over, and our work will not be done until every debt that was levied on innocent Australians is returned, and those responsible are held accountable. Even now, I hear rumours that payments are being funnelled into cashless welfare cards instead of bank accounts, and that payments affect the liquid assets test of Australians who are currently out of work, pushing their payments down at a time when they can ill afford it. I can tell the people of Australia that Labor will stand up for you against this government that is attacking you every day and this robodebt is a signature of their attacks on you.