House debates Questions without Notice

Pensions and Benefits

Tuesday, 1 December 2020 House of Representatives

Mark Dreyfus

Mark Dreyfus Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General

2:55 pm

My question is to the Attorney-General. In January 2017 the Attorney-General described Labor's call to stop the illegal robodebt scheme as 'one of the dumber things I've heard'. Given the government has now agreed to pay $1.2 billion of taxpayer money to settle the claims of robodebt victims, does the Attorney-General regret that statement?

Christian Porter

Christian Porter Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General

2:56 pm

It was the reference to it as solely the government's scheme, when Labor maintained income averaging for many years, which to me made the question appear stupid, which it still is.