Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Government Services. In light of yesterday's release of the government's response to the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, what is the Albanese government already doing to ensure a cruel, illegal scheme like robodebt can never happen again? How does this differ from other approaches?

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 her question. The royal commission's verdict into the coalition robodebt scandal is in. There were words used such as 'crude and cruel', 'illegal and unfair' and 'guilty until proven innocent'. The royal commission has made 56 recommendations about the coalition's robodebt scandal. We've agreed on 49 fully and on seven in principle.

Two words summarise Labor's approach to the coalition's robodebt scandal: 'never again'. Never again should this be allowed to happen. Yesterday I said how the Albanese government is putting an extra 3,000 frontline support staff on to help tackle waiting issues at Centrelink and Services Australia. Today I can update the House that we're also learning another lesson from robodebt: we've established an advisory board to Services Australia for the MyGov and Services Australia rollout. This advisory board will be the place where ideas are tested before they head out into the world. It will be composed of ethicists, human rights experts, advocates and digital thinkers, and chaired by a very constructive, positive Liberal—I'll say that again: a constructive, positive Liberal—Victor Dominello. I thank Victor for stepping up to deliver better government services with this government.

The advisory board shows that Labor understands—we get the lessons of robodebt. One catastrophic failure of robodebt was that the previous coalition government couldn't be bothered to listen to anyone outside the bubble of self-serving managing-upwards senior public servants over highly-paid PwC consultants. Another was putting in disinterested, forgetful and negligent ministers. The coalition never liked to hear from those they couldn't control or bully.

But I've been asked about alternative approaches. I regret to say that the member for Dickson shows no insight or interest in learning the lessons of robodebt. Yesterday afternoon after question time he channelled his best sense of Stuart Robert outrage. Actually, I take that back—that's too harsh. It was more the member for Cook's outrage that he was the victim! The member for Dickson said that he was the victim of the political attacks on robodebt. But he went further. I'd overlooked a press conference on 8 July where he said:

… when the problems were brought to the attention of the government at the time, the program was stopped.

He said, on 8 July, that when the coalition learned there were problems they stopped it. But today's editorial—in the Australian, no less—says that the coalition government was informed at the end of 2016 of the problems. They were saturated in coverage. But this forgetful, evasive Leader of the Opposition has nothing positive to say. He wants credit for closing it when, in fact, he was there every time they expanded the scheme.