Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary effort from the minister here today. He has completely ignored the motion that that the member for Barton moved. He has totally ignored the fundamental issue that is before the House today: why has he released confidential information about social security recipients to the media? Why has he done that? That is what this whole motion is about.

This is a very, very serious matter. Some of the most vulnerable people in Australia are receiving social security payments. In fact, we saw on the front page of the newspaper one of the saddest stories of a young man who took his own life. In part his family blame his suicide on the way in which he has been treated as part of this Centrelink robo-debt mess. To have this minister come into this chamber today and completely ignore—now we have the senior minister and the junior minister having a bit of a laugh over there about the mess that they have created. This minister needs to explain exactly what has gone on here. Who has authorised the release of confidential information? Did the secretary release the information using his or her legal powers? I said 'his or her' legal powers though I know it is her. Did the secretary do that under the act in the way that is possible, or not? This minister needs to come to the table and explain exactly what has gone on. That is what the millions of social security recipients want to know.

The minister said in his contribution right now that we should approach him and tell him what the issues are. Why would anybody—us or our constituents—trust him or the senior minister with information about any of our constituents who are having problems with this robo-debt mess? None of us could possibly trust any of these ministers with this confidential information.

The other extraordinary revelation by the minister in his contribution right now was when he said that they have 'slightly' increased automation. Slightly increased it! There is 'slightly' more automation, which of course is what is leading to this robo-debt mess. 20,000 letters a week—that is how many letters are going out. On the government's own estimation, 4,000 of them are wrong—not because of any human error, but the cause of 'slightly' more automation. We know where the human error is. The human error in this government starts right at the very top. The Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services, the Minister for Human Services all think that this is going swimmingly well. They think that this should keep going, no matter how many examples we bring forward and, as my colleagues have indicated, people themselves bring forward. There are people coming forward themselves saying, 'I have just been told by Centrelink or by a debt collector that I owed thousands of dollars.' When they bring their information forward, on so many occasions we find that in fact they owe nothing—absolutely nothing. Pensioners are being frightened out of their wits by this government with this system of automation which is sending 20,000 letters a week frightening people. People think that they owe these enormous debts, when in fact they owe nothing.

The heart of this motion today is who has authorised the release of this confidential information. This minister should come clean and tell the House what he has done. (Time expired)

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