Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister has already quoted the comments of the member for Aston, former minister for human services, from 2016, but I'm going to repeat them, because they were so shameful. This is what the member for Aston said:

We'll find you, we'll track you down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison.

Those comments were made after the government knew that the scheme was unlawful. It is shameful. Our government believes in the rule of law. The former government took a cowboy approach to the legality of their actions, even on something as far-reaching as robodebt, which ended up affecting around 400,000 Australians. How could this happen? Who was responsible? What advice did they seek? What advice were they given? And, most importantly, how can we make sure that this never happens again? A royal commission will answer these questions, and I have every confidence that this royal commission will.

See this speech in context