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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Birmingham) and the Minister representing the Minister for Government Services (Senator Ruston) to the questions without notice asked by Senators Wong, Gallagher and McCarthy today relating to robodebt.

In a feat of contortionism I don't think I've quite ever witnessed in this place, Senator Birmingham was unable to answer any of the three questions asked by Senator Wong with the truth. So let's just get it on the record. Senator Wong did ask:

Can the minister tell the Senate who was the social services minister in 2016 when the robodebt scheme was first introduced?

For those want to know the truth, the answer is: Mr Scott Morrison. The second question that was asked of Senator Birmingham by the Leader of the Opposition here in the Senate, Senator Wong, was: who was the Treasurer in 2016 and bragged that robodebt was 'proof of the social welfare system being "better managed"? And the answer to that question is: Mr Scott Morrison. Finally, Senator Wong asked Minister Birmingham:

Can the minister advise who was the Prime Minister in 2020 when $1.2 billion was used to settle the claims of victims of this government's illegal robodebt scheme?

Again—the trifecta—the answer was: Mr Scott Morrison. And Australians should never forget that the Prime Minister was the man who cooked up the robodebt scheme. He was the Treasurer who bragged about using robodebt to reduce Australia's debt, preying on very vulnerable people in the most egregious way. And he is the Prime Minister right at this moment, when the biggest payout for a failing of a government is making history—$1.2 billion was assigned by the courts to give compensation for people who were caught up in the scheme of Mr Morrison's design, of his implementation. And now there is a very, very belated clean-up.

I want to deal with the constant mistruth that we keep hearing from Senator Ruston with regard to this robodebt scheme being a common practice and the absolute untruth that she told when she said that this was a practice established by the Labor Party. I want to make it very, very clear that the Labor Party did check to see if there was a signal of a mismatch between what was on the record in the Department of Social Services and in the ATO. And, if there was a mismatch, the public servants then absolutely did the work to confirm the facts. The reality is that there were 20,000 Australians per year who were investigated using that scheme. But, the minute Mr Morrison got his hands on it, let me tell you how many illegal debts were being delivered to Australian people per week: 20,000 Australian people were served a debt from their own government—an illegally constructed debt. That lie that is constantly being told—that it was once the same under a Labor government—must end. It is nowhere near the truth. Mr Morrison is responsible for the construction of the robodebt debacle. He is the Treasurer who banked the savings at the expense of the Australian people, and he is the Prime Minister who must be held responsible for the impact on the great Australian nation.

Senator McCarthy asked Senator Ruston a very sensitive question. Senator Ruston's response was to lower her voice and talk about suicide and self-harm as a sensitive and delicate matter. It is, indeed; it's a very sensitive matter. It matters very much to people who've lost loved ones because they couldn't stand the pressure of the debt notices and the debt collectors that were sent upon them by their own government. The government has continued to deny that people self-harmed and, in desperation, took their lives, because of Mr Morrison—because he cooked up the scheme, because he delivered it as Treasurer and because he backed it in as Prime Minister on at least 76 occasions when the AAT knew that they were doing the wrong thing and told the government. This is a government that must hang its head in shame. The Australian people should kick them out on this matter alone. (Time expired)