Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. First of all, let me acknowledge Mrs Madgwick's grief. The grief for the loss of any child is truly tragic. I think that's something that the whole House accepts.

The government, of course, has a requirement in terms of raising debts. I think we all accept that, and we all respect that. In the case of Mrs Madgwick, her son's debt was sufficient and lawful and was not raised by income averaging. This is a very important point. I grieve for Mrs Madgwick; I truly do. I can't even begin to understand her pain. But the debt wasn't income averaged, which is the issue at case in the settlement. It was a legitimate debt.

A million Australians right now will be receiving legitimate debts; debts started being raised from 2 November. We won't collect until February. It's going to be hard. Governments of all persuasions have raised legitimate debts. We've all done it. There are many ministers on the front bench, and I respect what you've done. You'll receive no criticism from me on the way that many ministers have done it. It's a lawful part of what we are required to do, and we do it sensibly and respectfully.

Every day my department—just to give you some context—gets from the social worker census database the numbers I'm drawing from. We receive on average one case of escalated harm a day which is of such significance that it gets escalated, literally, to the secretary level. We get many, many more every day that are dealt with. This has been going on for decades. The numbers haven't increased, per se; this is just what Services Australia do in our names. We deal with vulnerable Australians. At the same time in the last financial year, we answered 29.2 million calls from Australians who need service and support, and we'll continue to do so.

Dealing with human loss of life and tragedy is something my agency does every single day, and it's hard. I want to, quite genuinely, shout out to the Services Australia staff that deal with this every single day. Can I encourage everyone—there are 325 service centres; many of you have got service centres in your electorate—if you get a chance, to just pop in and say thank you. That's all.

See this speech in context