Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Minister Stoker just tabled a response to the resolution of the fourth interim report of the Community Affairs References Committee into the robodebt debacle, which is apparently called the Income Compliance Program. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised at the government's response. The documents that the committee sought have not been tabled. This is the fourth interim report on this matter. The government has made repeated claims of public interest immunity. While I'm not surprised that we got basically the same response—there has been a bit of cutting and pasting going on; it's the same response but a different minister—I find it shocking that this government continues to claim public interest immunity over this matter.

Previously they said, 'There's a class action going on and it may prejudice or influence the class action.' Well, I've got to say that even with that excuse—it wasn't quite as paraphrased as that; I'm paraphrasing—which the committee rejected, the community has a right to know. We are asking fairly simple questions, I think. Did the government seek legal advice? Did they seek legal advice about a program that has impacted on so many Australians? They actually want to know. Did the government ask the simple question? Did they check? Did they ask, 'Is it actually legal to do what we want to do? Is it legal to send out hundreds and hundreds of thousands of letters to Australians, some still on income support and some not any more?' When there was no response, because people move after five to seven years, they were sicking debt collectors on people in a very distressing manner. I've spoken to many of those people who did actually receive pressure and visits by debt collectors. We also heard evidence in the previous inquiry into the robodebt debacle.

But here we have the government yet again claiming the same old, same old. The grounds on which they've claimed privilege is that they don't generally release legal advice. They claim legal privilege as a ground to refuse to provide information. The committee rejected that. We as a committee have rejected it time and time again. As it states in Odgers' Australian Senate Practice, it has never been accepted in the Senate nor in any comparable representative assembly that legal professional privilege provides grounds for refusal to provide information in a parliamentary forum.

The minister also claims that there might be ongoing cases, although the current class action is effectively resolved. We heard about that in the Senate committee hearing we had on 19 August. There are still some matters around disbursement of funds, but the government's talking about any future cases. The government is talking about any future claims that people might bring, because not everybody who was damaged by this debacle was part of the class action. The government is using the excuse, 'There may be others, so we are not going to release this legal advice.'

Let's cut through all the legal issues. I will come to what Mr Grech, a lawyer for Gordon Legal who ran the class action on behalf of all those claimants, said to us in a Senate committee in a minute. But when you cut through all the legal mumbo jumbo that a lot of people will see it as, especially those that were affected by robodebt, quite simply the government won't provide the Senate committee or, in fact, this place—because it is a resolution of this place—answers to simple questions like, 'Did you seek advice?' or, 'When did you seek advice?' Why won't the government say? A lot of people would say it's very obvious why they won't say—because they don't want to be caught out because either they didn't look or they didn't even think to think whether it was actually legal under the Social Security Act. Did they not think about it? Or did they check and go ahead anyway? When they found they may be in deep trouble, did they then seek legal advice? When did they seek legal advice? What was the nature of that legal advice?

There's quite clearly evidence here that the government, through their very nature of not wanting to provide this advice, ha ve something to hide.

The same happens when we ask about the findings of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. When you got their findings, did you actually talk to the department about it? Did the department take any action about it? Did they inform the ministers? What action did they take? Because if they'd actually looked at what was happening in the AAT, they would have known there was a problem. These are the sorts of things that this government continues to try to cover up by continuing to claim public interest immunity.

One of the excuses—because it is an excuse—that the minister uses is that the claims of public interest immunity were accepted by the court. When we asked about that in the Senate hearings, Mr Grech from Gordon Legal said they were and that there were some things he couldn't tell us. Yes, there were some claims , but there was a lot knocked out. One of the other documents we're tryi ng to get—the ombudsman got it— the government still won't release . That also points to what the government did or didn't know when, and what they did about it. The government won't release that. The government can't hide behind the claim that the court upheld public interest immunity. Mr Grech told the committee that some documents were un available, but a lot of the claims were knocked out. We don't know what those documents were , b ut the government should tell us what they were . They should come clean and tell the people who were damaged and harmed by this illegal program that went on for years . The government should come cle an and present those documents.

I see it as an insult to this place that the government continues to ignore resolutions of this chamber. It continues to ignore requests for this information by the Community Affairs References Committee. We will keep on asking these questions. We will keep on pursuing this because Australians have a right to know. All those people damaged by this illegal program have a right to know. Don't think that Australians or this chamber will accept you churning out the same copy -and- paste letter. The government doesn't want to tell the community what really happened. That's why we need a royal commission so that we can get to the bottom of this issue. There are so many unanswered questions.

I'm really pleased that the money the government illegally claimed has been paid back, but so many people have been damaged. It doesn't provide compensation for the years of deep distress for the people who were affected and their families . Some people found it all too hard. I give a trigger warning here : w e know that this program did contribute to people taking their lives. I'm not going to back away from saying that. Members of the committee , and I'm sure other members of this chamber , have spoken to families who've lost loved ones. Australians demand more. (Time expired)