Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What we are discussing this afternoon, for people who might have just picked this up and are listening to this discussion and who care about this matter, is a complex discussion about procedures, but it's really all about robodebt. What we see this afternoon from the minister who is now departing—I think that's a natural turnover, so I won't make a point about her leaving—is another scene in this government's determination to cover up what's gone on with robodebt. The senator made claims about proper administration and fairness but couldn't even bring herself to actually name the matter that is being discussed today, which is robodebt. To be clear: robodebt was the matter over which the government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to say a very insincere 'sorry'. To this day they continue to acknowledge that this scheme was responsible for the terrible impacts on mental health that were well described by Senator Siewert in her contribution—and I acknowledge her as the chair of the committee; that is why I thought it was appropriate to cede the first opportunity to speak to her.

I want to put on the record what Australians know but this government continues to deny—that for so many Australians the horror of their encounter with robodebt caused such incredible anxiety, distress and financial burden for their families that it is now a matter of public record that family members attribute loss of life to the total lack of hope that so overcame some Australians, particularly young Australians, that they felt they couldn't go on. In the circumstances created by their own government, they took their own lives. I want to acknowledge Kath Madgwick, mother of Jarrad, and Jenny Miller, mother of Rhys, who came forward and enabled me to put on the public record the horror of their experience, of their interactions with this government.

Today, if you listened to the minister's comments, after having been called here to the chamber by the Senate to answer these questions, you heard platitudinous comments, a failure to acknowledge the harm of robodebt and a failure to call it by its proper name, known to Australians in every state and territory of this great country. The reality is that because this government refuses to answer questions, we still don't know who came up with the legal advice for this unlawful scheme. The government still hangs its hat on bogus public interest immunity claims. For those who don't understand what a public interest immunity claim is: in simple layman's terms, it's when the government says: 'Look, this information is so precious, so important for the country, that we really can't talk about it. Just trust us; we're doing the right thing by you.' Except hundreds of thousands of Australians already know the government was not doing the right thing by them with regard to robodebt.

We know the government had to accept at the end of last year that they acted unlawfully. So much do they want to deny their responsibility that they can't even get the word 'unlawful' out of their mouths. They had to coin their own magic phrase: 'legal insufficiency'. What a con job that is. Any plain-talking Australian knows the truth. Robodebt is a scheme of the government's making, and they refuse to answer questions about what they did and advice they received. It is in the public interest for us to know. They stuffed it up royally. They should show us the evidence they used to support their claim to establish it. But they won't. What we've got from the government here today is more resistance, more obfuscation, more delay and more denial.

The only way we're going to get to the bottom of what happened is to have a royal commission. We cannot do with more spin from these ministers and their departmental staff. They have scorned the scrutiny of this chamber, the Senate of Australia. They do not think they're accountable to the Australian people, who are represented here by senators of every state who are here to hold the government to account. We're holding the government to account on a very important matter, of import to hundreds of thousands of Australian families. Make no mistake: this is the biggest social security scandal of a government in Australia's history. It's not the sort of history that, as a government, you really want to make. It is a scandal of extraordinary proportions. Hundreds of thousands have been affected and nearly a billion dollars has had to be paid back to Australians who had money illegally taken from them by their government. As I said in my opening remarks, countless Australians suffered emotional and mental anguish and despair at the terrible financial impact—all to prop up the Liberals' bottom line. Let's not forget who was Treasurer when this decision was made: none other than the Prime Minister of Australia.

What questions are we asking that are so terrible and awful that the government simply cannot answer them, that are so dangerous for the country that the government keep saying it's not in the public interest to answer them? This is what we want to know, and have a right to know, on behalf of the Australian people: who came up with the idea for the scheme? We have a right to know, and we want to know: what due diligence was done and what advice was obtained by this government prior to the scheme's implementation? Those opposite will laugh at and mock this process, but the reality is that they're the ones who unleashed robodebt; they're the ones who chose to change the way in which debt was recovered.

This is what we want to know: when did the government first learn that their robodebt scheme was unlawful, and why didn't they stop it the minute they knew? The question you have to ask is: did they know it was unlawful all along and just say, 'Here's a few billion we can scrape back; it doesn't matter if we hurt a few Australians on the way through; let's just grab the money'? That's the question that lingers at the moment.

We want to know, and we have a right to know: did the government settle legal challenges and choose not to appeal adverse AAT determinations in order to avoid a court ruling that the scheme was unlawful? What we do know is that some brave Australians who could handle the paperwork warfare actually went to the AAT and had the AAT, a tribunal, find for them against the government. It didn't happen on just one occasion; it happened on multiple occasions. The government knew it and, instead of saying, 'We might have a bit of a problem with this; we'd better sort it out,' did what they're doing today: they went all quiet, had the big hush-up, the big cover-up. We want to know for the Australian people, and we have a right to know: how was such a fundamentally and obviously flawed scheme allowed to continue for as long as it did? We want to know, and we have a right to know: in total, how much has this failed scheme cost the Australian taxpayer so far? In total, how many debts were issued under the illegal robodebt scheme cooked up by this government? How many law-abiding citizens, especially vulnerable Australians, have been harmed by robodebt?

We know that the minister still refuses to respond to the Community Affairs References Committee. The letter has been the subject of some discussion this afternoon. We can hope it was an administrative error, but, sadly, I fear it was just another part in the cover-up game that this government plays. Scott Morrison and Stuart Robert need to rule out the possibility of robodebt 2.0 and the chance that they will continue with their old practices and develop a new method to harass the Australian people who have already been traumatised. Human Services should be about human services; it shouldn't be about an out-of-control algorithm with no safeguards or oversight. I am constantly shocked at the disregard this government has for this august chamber and, through that, for the people of Australia. (Time expired)