Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. Expectant mother Julie from Curtin was living in a domestic violence refuge and working three jobs when her robodebt notice arrived in 2015. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking to provide certainty to Australians like Julie who've been forced to live with false debts hanging over their heads because of the former government's robodebt policy?

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Canberra for her question. The member for Canberra has been a vocal advocate for her constituents who have been impacted by the robodebt fiasco. Robodebt was a failed policy that caused suffering to some of the most marginalised people in our community. I would remind the House that because of this disastrous scheme from the Liberal-National parties, around 400,000 Australians had unlawful debts raised against them. It is a massive failure in public policy and was driven by ideology and by stigmatising welfare recipients. As far back as 2016 there were members of the public flagging concerns that these debts just weren't right. But successive former ministers of the Liberal-National parties—the member for Cook, the member for Aston, the member for Wannon and the member for Bradfield, to name a few—just didn't listen. Individuals felt increasingly anxious, depressed and worried because these debts kept coming and they couldn't understand them.

Some of these harms affected people significantly. As the member for Canberra mentioned, expectant mother Julie, from Curtin, was living in a domestic violence refuge and working three jobs when her robodebt notice arrived. She reported this work to Centrelink, as she was required to do, but was caught up in the robodebt web when she was told she owed $14,000 to pay back. Because of the damaging way robodebt averaged out income, this debt was grossly overestimated. The debt was just wrong, but her payments were automatically reduced without warning and the money she expected did not appear in her account. This left her in an incredibly precarious position. It meant there were times when Julie couldn't afford food or to pay bills for her daughter. She recounts regularly experiencing humiliation for having to leave groceries at the check-out after her card was declined due to unexpected insufficient funds. This was such a difficult circumstance, and just one example of the significant human cost of the Liberal Party's flawed and illegal robodebt scheme.

But our government is taking action. Not only have we established the royal commission which is now underway but we're taking action to provide certainty to those who have a robodebt review still open and still hanging over their heads. Around 197,000 reviews were commenced under the robodebt scheme but never completed. These in-flight reviews were put on hold when the Morrison government cancelled robodebt, but they've been sitting there and causing a lot of people anxiety and stress. This government is taking action; these reviews have now been closed. Enough is enough: it is time to draw a line in the sand.