Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Government Services. What did the final report of the royal commission into robodebt find as to who the real victims of robodebt were?

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

I thank the member for Higgins for her question about who the real victims of robodebt were. I draw the attention of the parliament to volume 3 of the royal commission's report, chapter 10, 'Effects of robodebt on individuals', pages 325 to 346. The royal commissioner forensically outlines who the real victims were. The real victims were those who received confusing initial letters which people didn't understand how to reply to. The real victims were those who had changed their address from the Centrelink record, having got off Centrelink or become homeless. The real victims were those who had their onus of proof reversed such that after the first demand from the government they were required to prove the case wrong—a case of guilty until proven innocent. The real victims were those who were denied reviews because they couldn't provide the payslips of companies that had gone out of business.

The real victims were the Centrelink staff who were required to carry out illegal orders of an unlawful policy. The real victims were those Australians who lived in rural and remote Australia who at no point were contemplated in the design of the robodebt scheme. The real victims were those who suffered stigma, which was exacerbated by the political narrative of successive Liberal governments. The real victims were those who suffered financial hardship and had to sell their possessions to pay an unlawfully raised debt. The real victims were those who suffered the effects of unfair accusations. The real victims were those who suffered trauma, anxiety and distress. The real victims were those who took their own lives. The real victims are the mothers of those who took their own lives. The real victims are all those Australians who have lost trust in government because of an unlawful scheme run for 4½ years.

I've gone to who the real victims are. One person who is not a real victim is the member for Cook. Yesterday the member for Cook claimed that the adverse findings against him were disproportionate, wrong, unsubstantiated or contradicted. The purpose of that statement was to frame himself as the real victim of the robodebt royal commission. The member for Cook said:

In making their finding, the commission has sought to reverse the onus of proof to establish their claim.

Satire is truly dead in this country when the member for Cook complains about the reversal of onus of proof on him but not the 434,000 people who did have the onus reversed. The member for Cook then said that the royal commission was a 'quasi-legal process'—a new Morrisonian doctrine about the law. The royal commission was not quasi-legal. It's real; it was constituted by the law—46 days of public hearings and over 100 witnesses under oath.

I can see the member for Cook lip-syncing something. Well, let us be very clear. The victims of robodebt never had their legal costs paid for, never had the chance to see the evidence that was put against them. The member for Cook is a bottomless well of self-pity with not a drop of mercy for all the real victims of robodebt.