Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I'm proud to rise in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Responding to Robodebt) Bill 2025, moved by my friend the member for Clark. This bill represents unfinished business when it comes to robodebt, more than two years after the final report from the robodebt royal commission was handed down. It implements or complements some of the outstanding recommendations from the royal commission's final report. It sets out new positive duties that require the government to emphasise and prioritise the needs of social security recipients when administering social security law and designing systems and policies. It mandates human oversight of debts raised above $2,000 before the decisions come into effect or decisions which would cause the cancellation of a payment or benefit. It also mandates notifying recipients if a debt has been raised against them as a result of automation. It places a six-year time limit on debt recovery actions, among other measures.

Robodebt cannot be allowed to be forgotten or to be repeated. We can't allow the most vulnerable in our community to come up against the might of the government—of automated systems—without compassion or compromise. Yet I worry that bills like this and the ethos behind them are needed more than ever.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman found this month that 964 JobSeeker recipients had their social security payments unlawfully terminated between April 2022 and July 2024, due to IT glitches in the targeted compliance framework which automatically cancelled payments without oversight.

We can see that automation without oversight is still a barrier to vulnerable Australians getting the help they need. It's clear we have a long way to go before the lessons of robodebt are learnt and implemented. We need a true turnaround in attitudes to guard against the demonisation of welfare recipients.

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