Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a statement in regard to the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, and, in some ways, the finalisation of what has been a truly harrowing process for individuals involved in this. The country really saw a situation where a government conducted an illegal enterprise. There is no other way to describe what they did other than 'illegal'. In fact, the royal commission found that robodebt was a cruel and crude mechanism that was neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.

In essence, people were traumatised on the off chance that they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration in both human and economic terms. It was something that I was involved with at the time, prior to being elected to here. Even though I like to remind people that I had a life outside of politics, being a station hand and working construction, I did work for a senator for a few years before I got elected, just as the robodebt enterprise was starting to have its effects felt out in the community. It was something that I was trying to help people with as an electorate officer through a very complicated process where we were just stonewalled by the department and the government at the time.

Some of the human consequences of that are what need to be kept in mind when we talk about this. It's something that I was familiar with, and I just went back to the royal commission itself and came across a statement of a woman who I haven't met before but who would be well-known to the community: Kathleen Madgwick. She has turned tragedy into purpose and has fought hard for vulnerable people as they come up against government departments, particularly Centrelink. The tragedy was the worst kind. It involved the suicide of her 23-year-old son, Jarrad. These two Queenslanders, who were originally from Victoria, settled in Tin Can Bay and Mackay.

I'll read out a bit of Kathleen's testimony, which she gave to royal commission. She provided a written submission to the royal commission. Jarrad had been through a lot. He'd been through a lot with Centrelink, I should say, trying to sort out a payment. He'd worked a bit on and off. It got to the point where she thought that it had finally been resolved and he was going to get a payment. They were living together at this time. Here's a bit of the letter I will quote: 'It was that in one afternoon in May 2019, Jarrad seemed happier. He was in his bedroom listening to music, and I remember him talking about joining the Army, which was a plan he had for his future. At about 4.45 that same afternoon, I remember that Jarrad came out of his room and said to me something like, "I'm not going to get paid, because I owe them $2,000, and I'll never get out of debt." He was very upset. He was talking about a debt that he had to DHS. This was the first time that I'd heard him say anything about a debt to DHS. At around 5 pm that same evening, Jarrad came out of his room. He'd been working on a cover letter for a job application at a meatworks. He asked me what I thought about his cover letter, and, as I read it, I saw he'd written something that I thought wasn't really appropriate for the job. I gave him some feedback, knowing that he'd written it in the afternoon while he was frustrated with DHS, but he started swearing at me, saying—and I won't quote the full thing—"What the F do you know?" We exchanged words and he went back to his room. It was not usual for him to swear at me like that, and I was annoyed by it. I thought I'd let him cool down, so I left him alone. When we went out that night, at around 6.45 pm, I believed he was going for a walk to clear his head. At around 7.30 pm that night, I got a text from Jarrad saying, "I love you." I was glad to receive this text, as I thought it had meant he had calmed down. The next morning I woke up and saw that Jarrad wasn't home. I sent him a text, rang him, and sent him a message on social media, but I received no response. I was starting to get worried, as it was not like him to not respond for an extended period of time. I called Queensland police on 31 May, and they said they'd start looking for him. I took some comfort from that and resigned myself to waiting to hear from Jarrad. Queensland police rang me at around 6.45 am the next day, and I jumped at the phone call, but they were only calling to say they hadn't started looking for Jarrad yet. I told QPS that I couldn't wait because I was really concerned now. It had been a whole day and night since I'd heard from him. I set off walking shortly after that phone call. I remember thinking that I would go over to the park, thinking that he might be hiding out there. I took Jarrad's dog, Cooper, with me on my walk. As I went down into the bushes and into the park, I saw in the corner of my eye what I thought was a jumper in a tree. As I got closer, I saw that it was Jarrad. He had hung himself. In the days following Jarrad's death, I tormented myself thinking about the fight we'd had about his cover letter. I felt like a bad mother. As time went by, I came to realise that his suicide was not because of our argument. We disagreed in the past over minor things and this was one such disagreement. While Jarrad had been struggling with money and felt the pressure of bills that he had to pay, I do not believe he had been living with suicidal intent for an extended period of time. We had been at the beach a day before his death and he had been caught in a rip while out swimming. When he had saved himself and got back to shore, he expressed to me how disappointed he was at his level of fitness and spoke about how keen he was to get fit again as part of his plan for the future. I believe that the pressure of Jarrad's financial situation and going from thinking he was getting a payment after initially being rejected to believing that he was not going to receive any money for some time flipped a switch for him. I do not believe that his debt was the only thing that bothered him. It was a confluence of factors, with the debt from Centrelink being the final thing that made him feel like he couldn't go on.'

In some ways, I feel like I should sit down now, because no message is as powerful as Kathleen Madgwick, a one-time resident of Mackay. But I think that the work that she's doing needs to be acknowledged along with how important it is that government services are there to do the job which they're supposed to do. One thing that this government has done over the last almost four years that we've been in government is restore integrity and capacity to the Public Service. It is something which is not abstract at all when you think about Kathleen and Jarrad. It's about something which has a vitally significant impact on individuals' lives, whether it is the 41,000 veterans who are waiting for their claims to be assessed, the mess that we were left with in the NDIS or the Public Service that was run down and, I think, resulted in the death of Jarrad and resulted in the underselling of so many Australians and their abilities.

Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Robodebt was the largest failure of public administration in Australia's history. Two weeks ago, on 11 March 2026, the National Anti-Corruption Commission released its investigation into Robodebt. Unfortunately, the clearest takeaway from this investigation is that our federal integrity commission has been a profound disappointment and that steps have to be taken as a matter of urgency to restore public trust in our most public facing anticorruption agency.

The origins of the NACC's investigation into Robodebt only reinforced that disappointment—disappointment in the effectiveness of the NACC, in its integrity and its transparency and in its leadership. In 2023, the Robodebt royal commission referred six individuals to the NACC to determine whether they engaged in corrupt conduct. At the time, the commissioner, Major General Paul Brereton AM, declared a conflict of interest. Recognising that he should not be involved in decision-making, he delegated his powers to his deputy commissioners and appeared to recuse himself from the inquiry. Nearly a year later, the NACC made the extraordinary decision not to investigate the 'Robodebt Six', suggesting that the conduct of the individuals involved had been fully ventilated by the royal commission. That decision prompted more than 1,200 public complaints, including many from the electorate that I represent, many highlighting the lack of accountability and the breach of public trust that this finding represented. In the wake of a royal commission which effectively and with transparency exposed dishonest, secret and unlawful conduct, the NACC's decision sent a woeful, incredibly disappointing message to the victims of the robodebt scheme. Worse still, the NACC inspector later found that the commissioner, despite his prior declaration of a conflict of interest, had been involved in this decision. In doing so, the supposed custodian of public trust had himself engaged in officer misconduct.

Unfortunately, the commission's leadership continues to be marred by controversy. Just last month, it was announced that the office of the inspector would undertake a second investigation into complaints of officer misconduct in relation to Mr Brereton's involvement with the Australian Defence Force.

The NACC is not delivering on its promise. Public confidence has been eroded, and its credibility has been weakened. This is not the National Anti-Corruption Commission that Australia envisaged when, in 2022, I and other Independents who had called for it and advocated for it were elected. My constituents still believe that the NACC can be an institution for public good, that it can be the strong and independent watchdog that Australians were promised. But that's not going to happen if we don't restore confidence in its leadership and if we don't significantly change how it interfaces with the Australian public.

Mr Brereton was appointed as a commissioner for a five-year term. That should not be a shield from accountability. When public trust has been so clearly damaged, this parliament should not just wait for time to pass and hope that that confidence will return.

Section 250 of the NACC Act 2022 provides for the termination of a NACC commissioner for misbehaviour or incapacity. I call on the government to consider this. I also call on the government to consider reforming section 250 of the NACC Act to ensure automatic removal of a NACC commissioner in the event that he or she is found to have engaged in corrupt conduct. And I call on the government to legislate so that future such investigations of the NACC are, by default, undertaken with open hearings. The act currently allows the commissioner to determine whether hearings are held in public or in private based on a broad public interest test. This discretion has been overwhelmingly exercised in favour of privacy. That has to change. The first and most important reform is structural. We have to have a legislative presumption in favour of public hearings, with private proceedings reserved for specific and genuine exceptions. There are legitimate reasons which we've discussed in this place many times—national security, witness protection, active law enforcement operations—for some proceedings needing to be held in private. But they should be the exception, not the default.

The power of sunlight is not just symbolic. Research consistently shows that transparency in public integrity bodies increases deterrence. When the highest profile, most publicly anticipated matter before the commission was heard behind closed doors—despite the victims, the advocates and journalists calling for transparency—that sent a message to those affected by robodebt. It sent a message that that commission is not so different from the other government institutions that they very justifiably mistrust.

The NACC has to become more outward facing. Its website, its referral processes and its public communications should be designed for the public, not for lawyers. And it has to have a greater interface with and acceptance of referrals from whistleblowers.

The failures of the NACC leadership have diverted time and attention away from the matters that it was established to investigate. For almost three years, 56 pages of the robodebt royal commission's final report were kept secret as the NACC stalled on the need for further investigation and possible referrals. Now the final NACC report has found insufficient evidence to prove unlawful behaviour beyond reasonable doubt. Those findings of the NACC are beyond disappointing. Of the robodebt six, two were found to have engaged in misconduct. But the others, despite being intimately involved in the design and implementation of robodebt, were effectively exonerated. Commentators have suggested that they demonstrate a failure of the NACC to apply rigorous standards.

Corruption—as we saw in public office, as we saw in the case of the illegal robodebt scheme—is not a victimless crime. Robodebt was not victimless; there were many victims. The real cost of the NACC's inability to investigate effectively is being borne by those Australians whose lives were destroyed by robodebt: families who were wrongfully pursued, individuals who were left financially and emotionally traumatised, and citizens whose trust in government was shattered. The NACC's failure to hold those responsible to account leaves those Australians without justice and leaves the broader public with a troubling message that those in our seats of power are afforded more procedural fairness than everyday Australians.

Those concerns are now being compounded and escalated by the government's increasing use of automated assessment tools in aged care and disability care. We're seeing it again. The government seems to have learnt nothing from this very recent lesson, and it seems inevitable that without change we are doomed to repeat those errors of the past. We need to legislate guardrails for how our Public Service uses automated decision-making tools before we cause the same sort of harm to Australians in the disability and aged-care sectors that we've already inflicted on them with robodebt.

We can't allow the legacy of robodebt to be one of grief, silence and impunity. The victims of that scheme deserve recognition, accountability and redress. Any institution that claims to protect public integrity can never lose sight of the individuals that it exists to serve. That is why I'm calling on the government to institute new leadership of our integrity watchdog and to review very carefully the legislative settings around the NACC, to increase the extent to which it's outward facing and to increase its transparency. We have to restore faith in this critical body, and we can do that only by demonstrating real commitment to its transparency and its effectiveness. Sunlight is still the very best medicine, and we need the NACC to provide sunlight on the dealings of our government and of our Public Service.

Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll just start by acknowledging the contribution of my friend the member for Forde, who spoke before the member for Kooyong, and thank him for his courage in sharing the moving and horrific story of Jarrad, which illustrates the significant harm that was caused to Australians through the robodebt scheme. As we heard from the member for Forde, some of that harm cannot be undone. Lives were lost or destroyed because of robodebt. To say it was a gross failure of public administration is an understatement. It was a catastrophic failure. Its design and implementation meant it was always going to be a failure because of the lens through which it was created. It always considered the social safety net to be a problematic burden, a burden on the economy and something to be eliminated. It also always considered those who used the social safety net to be rorters—people who were lazy, actively avoiding work and looking to take advantage of public funds just because they could, like new mothers, who were accused of being 'double dippers'. People using the broad social safety net in this country and who were victims of robodebt were treated like criminals.

Budget control and debt reduction are important, but there are ways to achieve this without grouping together individual Australians using the social safety net under the umbrella of 'rorters', 'dodgy welfare recipients' or 'bludgers'. Finding savings in the budget doesn't have to exclusively mean cutting services, reducing support and targeting vulnerable Australians in the hope that they lack sufficient agency and resources to challenge what has happened to them. That is what robodebt did. It was lazy budget control—'No other ideas to reform the budget? No problem. Vulnerable Australians are available.' Robodebt found a group of vulnerable people that were considered easy targets, and the architects of the scheme hoped that they wouldn't say anything or speak up. Now we know that some of them can no longer speak up because they are no longer with us. People's lives have been destroyed, in many cases irreparably. The human impacts of robodebt look like this—families struggling to make ends meet receiving a debt notice at Christmas, young people being driven to despair by demands for payment and, horribly, the account of a young man's suicide. This can never happen again and, thanks to many stakeholders, but especially the countless victims who tirelessly advocated for themselves and others, it won't.

The reality is that the social safety net is designed to provide a basic level of financial and social support to individuals and families in need, helping to alleviate poverty and prevent economic hardship. Social safety nets play a critical part in reducing income inequality by helping to ensure a minimum standard of living for low-income individuals and families. An effective social safety net can help to break the poverty trap by providing resources and support to individuals and families, enabling them to access opportunities and improve their economic situation, because, even in this great and successful country, not everyone has the same opportunity to contribute, to access paid work or to work as much as they want to. Illness, disability, accidents or acting as a carer for others—things no-one wishes for—sometimes intervene to limit the contribution an individual can make. Sometimes it's simply a case of lightning striking, meaning that access to a fair and effective social safety net is critically important.

It's also important, however, to strike that balance between the optimal level of government intervention to provide support and the promotion of agency and individual self-reliance. But seeking help when help is genuinely needed is not rorting, is not dodgy; it's the human story. As the royal commission found, robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off-chance that they might owe money. It was a costly failure of public administration in both human and economic terms.

From 2016 to 2019, the robodebt scheme raised more than half a million inaccurate Centrelink debts through a method of income averaging, which has since been ruled unlawful. Debts were imposed on Australians who then had to prove that they didn't owe them. This required them to hunt down old payslips and bank statements, which was a time-consuming and stressful process, rife with confusion and anxiety—heightened when Centrelink sent debt collectors or garnished their payments without their knowledge. Beyond the burden of repaying debts, the scheme caused an incalculable amount of stress and hardship for thousands of Australians, created by a government system that was meant to support and protect them.

Following the royal commission into the robodebt scheme, the Albanese Labor government accepted all 56 of the royal commission's recommendations for reform and has so far implemented 52 of them, with the implementation of the final four underway and noting that three remaining recommendations require legislative reform. One of the recommendations from the report of the royal commission touched on the effects of robodebt on individuals and recommended that policies and processes under the auspices of Services Australia have a primary emphasis on the recipients the services are meant to support. This recommendation speaks to the human element of needing support, including the need to avoid language and conduct that reinforces feelings of stigma and shame associated with the receipt of government support when it is needed, including explaining processes clearly and in plan language and taking all practicable steps to avoid the possibility that interactions with the government might exacerbate those stresses or introduce new ones. The Albanese governments 'tell us once' policy is, for example, designed to streamline government interactions for individuals who are accessing the social safety net.

Other critical recommendations include having improved and clear dispute resolution and complaint processes so that affected individuals understand the decisions being made and have a much greater awareness of their rights and how to activate them, with Services Australia now required to refer them to adequately resourced legal and non-legal services as necessary and also to financial counsellors and community legal centres and legal aid commissions.

Another recommendation was having Services Australia staff, including executive staff, trained in and spending time in frontline roles so they can interact with vulnerable Australians and gain a greater appreciation of the social safety net and why people access it—the human stories. This was another key recommendation because, for a system to work fairly, it must be accurate and adequately resourced with properly trained staff and high-quality services that are responsive to an individual's need. 'Computer says no' must not be the default way every time.

Improved safeguards, transparency and oversight must keep the social security system in check and include human led oversight mechanisms for any automated decision-making processes. This is because humans are unique. Their needs are unique. Recognising and reflecting this is critical to ensuring the fairness and adequacy of services, because, if services are provided but they are inadequate or not appropriately tailored, then they don't advance, improve or eliminate the adverse position of the affected individual. It leads to repeat inquiries, the use of duplicate resources and, ultimately, more unnecessary cost to the Australian taxpayer.

Finally, the government has also reached agreement on what will be the largest class action settlement in Australian history if approved by the Federal Court. This would see the Commonwealth pay $475 million as compensation for the harms caused by the robodebt scheme. The size of this settlement reflects the harm caused to vulnerable Australians by the heartless and disastrous policies of the former Liberal government. It is not only a reflection of the Albanese Labor government's determination to address the harms caused by the robodebt scheme but an illustration of this government's approach to integrity and transparency with respect to the provision of public services.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by sending my condolences to the thousands of Australians who were wrongly pursued under robodebt, which will remain a very dark stain on our history. Robodebt didn't happen because of a couple of bad actors. It happened because a culture of compliance replaced a culture of integrity, and ministers and departments prioritised budget outcomes over human lives.

The NACC's findings lay bare the limits to its ability to deliver justice to those impacted by robodebt, especially in the absence of public hearings, and the lack of criminal referrals provides cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who were wrongly pursued by robodebt, particularly the families who lost loved ones. This has left the families who have fought tirelessly for the truth for the last nine years pretty devastated.

The simple truth is that robodebt was an unlawful system introduced to improve a government's bottom line by punching down on some of the most vulnerable Australians. Robodebt was cruel, it was illegal and the government knew it. It was a shocking low point of unethical behaviour in the Australian Public Service. The Albanese government must learn from the mistakes of past governments, particularly when alarm bells are ringing on NDIS and aged-care assessments right now.

So what can we do differently to prevent this happening again? There are a number of things, but part of what we can do is about automated decision-making. To restore trust in the Public Service, Australians deserve full transparency on how government decisions are made when their lives are affected, especially when those decisions are automated. Robodebt exposed the very real risks of automated decision-making in government. Automated decision-making, or ADM, is the use of automated technology to make decisions or assist humans to make decisions. It can be low risk. For example, the government uses ADM to automatically calculate, process and transfer your Medicare rebate after you visit the doctor. But it can also be high risk, and the use of high-risk ADM is only increasing, particularly with the growth of AI technologies.

Today, automated tools are being used or proposed in complex, high-impact areas like aged care and the NDIS. In these systems, human assessments feed into automated tools that determine support packages, and in some cases human decision-makers cannot override the result, even on review. These are decisions that profoundly affect people's lives, health and dignity. Without transparency on how these systems work, there's growing concern and fear in our communities. If we fail to act, we're at risk of repeating the same pattern we saw with robodebt—different systems but the same underlying failure.

The royal commission saw this clearly. Among its recommendations was the need for a clear, legislated framework governing automated decision-making in government to ensure transparency, accountability and legality. That recommendation was made nearly three years ago. Since then, there have been consultations. There are guidelines. There are policies covering some uses of artificial intelligence. But we still do not have a comprehensive, mandatory framework that applies across government, including to the kinds of rules based systems that caused robodebt in the first place. While the warning was heard, the action has not followed, and it's increasingly ridiculous to hear the government talk about the coalition's robodebt failures when it has done nothing to actually make the system better—nothing to ensure it won't happen again.

That's why I'm putting forward a new idea to push the government to action on this. I'm calling for a new framework to govern the use of automated decision-making in government. This must be legislated and it must be mandatory. At its most basic level, we need a framework to ensure government decisions are safe, lawful and fair. A robust framework ensures automated systems are tested before use, appropriate to the task and governed by clear lines of accountability. It would help prevent decisions that are unlawful by design, it would ensure humans remain accountable where human judgement is required and it would create clear pathways to correct mistakes quickly before harm escalates. This is the minimum standard that Australians should expect after robodebt.

It's not just about preventing harm. Automated decision-making also presents genuine opportunities. When it's designed well, it can make governments faster, more consistent and more responsive. It can reduce backlogs, it can streamline routine rules-based decisions and it can free up public servants to focus on complex cases where empathy, judgement and discretion are needed most. In a system under pressure from growing demands, constrained resources and rising expectations, these efficiencies do matter. But those benefits will only be realised if the government has the confidence to deploy automation responsibly and if the public has the confidence that it will be used fairly. Without a clear framework, departments are left to navigate these risks on their own. Some become overly cautious. Others push ahead without sufficient safeguards. A clear, legislated framework would give certainty, would allow innovation within boundaries and would support better decision-making.

None of this is possible without trust. Robodebt did enormous damage to public trust in government decision-making, particularly in automated systems, and that damage has not healed on its own. I saw this clearly in my own community consultation that I undertook last week. More than 750 constituents responded to my survey about automated decision-making. More than three-quarters of respondents said they were uncomfortable with the government using automated systems to help make decisions about them. An overwhelming majority supported mandatory, legislated rules. The message was clear: people don't trust ADM.

Trust is not built through slogans or assurances. It's built through transparency, accountability and meaningful rights of review. Without a framework, every new automated system will be met with scepticism and fear, no matter how well intentioned. With a framework, we can rebuild confidence and allow government to genuinely harness the benefits of responsible automation.

So what does a good automated decision-making framework actually involve? Well, at a high level it needs three pillars. The first is transparency. People have a fundamental right to understand decisions that affect them, particularly when those decisions are made by machines. A strong framework requires transparency at three levels. At the system level, there should be public visibility over where automated decision-making is used. A public register of ADM systems would allow security, accountability and informed debate. At the decision level, people must be informed when an automated decision has been used in a decision about them, and this should never be hidden. And, at the explanation level, people must be given meaningful reasons for decisions in plain language. If a system cannot explain how it reached an outcome, it has no place in decisions that affect people's rights or livelihoods. Transparency is simply essential to build trust in ADM.

The second pillar is strong decision-level controls. Not all decisions are the same, and a framework must be risk based. Before any automated system is deployed, its risks should be assessed. Some decisions, particularly those involving discretion, complexity or significant potential harm, may simply be inappropriate for automation. Where automation is used in high-risk contexts, clear safeguards are essential. There must be a human who's accountable for the decision and its outcomes. Responsibility cannot be delegated to an algorithm. For high-impact decisions, there must be meaningful human involvement, including the ability to override or correct an automated outcome. Automation should support decision-making, not replace responsibility.

The third pillar is review and oversight. One of the most damaging aspects of robodebt was how difficult it was to challenge. When people did challenge it, the system pushed back repeatedly. A good framework ensures people can quickly raise concerns and seek review, particularly where delay could cause serious harm. It also requires ongoing monitoring and testing of automated systems so that errors are identified early, not after years of damage. Critically, there must be independent oversight. Without an independent body empowered to enforce the rules, a framework risks becoming aspirational rather than real. Independent oversight ensures compliance, accountability and continuous improvement. Rules only matter if they're followed; the robodebt scheme was unlawful at the time, but, without a well-resourced oversight body, it was left unchallenged. A new framework governing the use of ADM in government is essential and will only work if it includes strong oversight.

Robodebt was a profound failure, and it's time we did something so that it doesn't happen again. We need a legislated framework for automated decision-making, and this must include requirements for transparency, strong decision-level controls and provisions for oversight and review. This framework would support the government in unlocking increased efficiency for automation and present minimal risk-based compliance requirements to departments and agencies. It would also build trust. It's time to show Australians that we've learnt from robodebt and that we're prepared to do what's needed to prevent it from happening again.