House debates Questions without Notice
Pensions and Benefits
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
2:55 pm
My question is to the Prime Minister. Will he confirm as a matter of record that his government has agreed in court to the following about his 2015 robodebt scheme: (1) raising robodebt solely by averaging of tax office data was not legal; (2) adding a 10 per cent penalty to robodebt based on this information was not legal; and (3) seizing tax refunds relying upon robodebt was not legal?
Stuart Robert Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
This is what the Commonwealth and Labor's lawyers, Gordon Legal, agreed in court. We agreed and acknowledged that the settlement is not an admission of liability, does not reflect any acceptance of these allegations and does not reflect—
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
It's on relevance. The minister is talking about the wrong court case. I'm talking about the Amato court case of last year.
Honourable members interjecting—
Tony Smith Speaker
Order, members on both sides! I'll just remind members on my left who comprehended my earlier statement for about half an hour that it still applies.
Mr Sukkar interjecting—
The member for Deakin will leave under standing order 94(a).
The member for Deakin then left the chamber.
The Leader of the House on a point of order?
Christian Porter Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General
The surname of a person was used in the previous question but I'm not recalling that there was any specification of the actual case or resolution of that case in the second question, in which case it would be entirely open for the minister to speak about more than one case.
Tony Smith Speaker
You can speak to the point of order, Member for Maribyrnong.
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
On the relevance, it's very clear that the Commonwealth should know what it agreed to in a court action. If the minister is not aware of what the Commonwealth has agreed to, I can offer them the document where it is.
Christian Porter Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General
We can't draft the questions for the member, but when he read the question there was no specific mention of a specific case. If he wants an answer about a specific case he needs to raise which case it is that he wants an answer on.
Tony Smith Speaker
The Leader of the House makes a very valid point. We have question time and you have the opportunity to ask a very specific question. If it's not specific, we really can't have a situation where bits are added to it afterwards by way of points of order. Of course, there's an opportunity to ask a very specific question along the lines made in the point of order, but the minister is only compelled to answer what was actually asked.
Stuart Robert Fadden, Liberal Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
To help the member, the Amato orders were confined solely to that case. But, when it comes to the class of participants, the Commonwealth and Gordon Legal have acknowledged that this settlement is not an admission of liability, does not reflect any acceptance of these allegations by the Commonwealth and does not reflect any knowledge of unlawfulness. That was agreed by both the Commonwealth and Labor's lawyers.