Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bean for his question. In the most recent block of hearings at the royal commission into robodebt, we've heard from Professor Renee Leon, the former secretary of the Department of Human Services; Timothy French, DHS legal counsel; and the member for Fadden, the then Minister for Human Services.

Specifically, Mr French testified that, in a meeting in early July 2019, the member for Fadden was verbally briefed that the Australian Government Solicitor's opinion was that robodebt was on very shaky grounds—testimony which Professor Leon corroborated in her own evidence. Further evidence was given that on 31 July the member for Fadden appeared on the ABC's Insiders program, where he defended robodebt and stated, amongst other things, that 'in 99.2 per cent of the cases, the debt was correct'—99.2 per cent, he said.

However, last week, under questioning by the royal commissioner, the member for Fadden admitted that he knew that what he was saying was false. The royal commissioner said:

MR SCOTT: Well, your evidence was that you could not raise a debt based solely on averaging.

THE HON STUART ROBERT: That was my belief, yes.

MR SCOTT: And in 90 per cent of cases, that's exactly what was happening under the program to your knowledge at the time.

THE HON STUART ROBERT: Yes, that is correct.

MR SCOTT: So what you said there, to your knowledge at the time, was false, wasn't it?

And this answer is very interesting.

THE HON STUART ROBERT: To my personal view, yes. But I'm still a Government Minister, and it's still a government program. And this was the approach that Cabinet has signed off on …

The basic position of the evidence of the member for Fadden was that cabinet solidarity allowed him as a minister to give statistics on robodebt that he did not believe to the Australian—

See this speech in context