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

My question is to the Minister for Government Services. If the government has done nothing wrong on robodebt, why did the government agree to pay $1.2 billion to its victims, including $112 million in compensation?

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

I thank the member for Maribyrnong for his comeback question, once again. As we've been saying all week, on 19 November last year the government announced that it would be refining its program, based on its view that collecting debts using averaged income data from the ATO was insufficient.

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs will leave under 94(a). He's been warned multiple times.

The member for Isaacs then left the chamber.

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

That process had been ongoing for 26 years. For 26 years, governments of the day had been using averaged income data. As I informed the House yesterday—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Maribyrnong, on a point of order?

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

On relevance: the question was very specifically referring to the landmark class settlement of two weeks ago, and the minister well knows that the 400,000 people included in that landmark settlement were people who were robodebted between 2015 and 2019. He is being irrelevant going back 26 years.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the member for Maribyrnong: taking a point of order is not an opportunity to debate the matter or to further explain the question. That's why there is a time limit on questions. You had up to 30 seconds. The Leader of the House, on the point of order?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect to standing order 98 and that contribution from the member for Maribyrnong, it appears that he is asking for an expression of a legal opinion. This matter has—

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left! The member for Fremantle and others!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the member realises that the matter has been settled on a legal basis with no admission of liability on central issues of negligence. It seems that he is asking for a legal opinion.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without detaining the House with a long explanation, certainly the practice around that standing order makes a number of distinctions, but, even so, the beginning of the question wasn't doing that. I have a different problem, and that is that it was a very specific question. I say to the minister that he has had about a 50-second preamble. He needs to either bring himself to the question or wind his answer up.

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

This government didn't invent income averaging. But the reason why the government sought to settle a matter was based on the announcement on 19 November last year, where the government arrived at the conclusion that the use of income averaging, a practice that had been going for 26 years, was not sufficient. As soon as the government reached the conclusion that it was not sufficient, despite 26 years of history, the government then sought to repay, as any government would. The fact that the use of income averaging went back to the Keating days means, frankly, that this government ended Labor's use of income averaging and, as part of that, commenced repaying Australians where an insufficient debt was raised because income averaged ATO data had been used for a quarter of a century.