Amanda Stoker (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love a good novel. I love a good bit of creative writing. But this parliament is no place for creative writing. It's no place for rewriting history. It's no place for the weaving of fantasy novels in the context of parliamentary speeches. Labor would have you believe that income averaging and debt recovery had its beginnings in 2015, and the fact—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

I'll take the interjection from Senator Pratt, because the very fact that she insists on perpetually yelling over me shows how much she wants to go 'la, la, la' and pretend she doesn't have to hear the truth. But these are the facts, and the Australian people have more open-mindedness than we'll get from Senator Pratt. When it comes to the issue of when debt recovery started, it's important to understand that this government did not invent income averaging. Income averaging has been a program in our Centrelink compliance system for a very long time—we actually need to go back not five years, not 10 years, but 26 years.

So, let's take a look at the evidence, but first let's put a bit of a definition around the term 'robodebt'. It's used by those opposite as a bit of a slogan to cover all manner of ills, but in the minds of Australians—the mums and dads who might be listening at home—robodebt means the use of computers to compare actual income with declared income to work out whether there are any discrepancies and to make sure the person is getting the right amount in their welfare cheque.

I've got a letter right here, sent to an Australian citizen in 1994, under the Keating Labor government, about data matching pertaining to their Newstart allowance. It says: 'If you do not reply, we will use the tax office's information about your income and we will write to you about how much money you need to pay back.' I've also got here, from 1994, a Department of Social Services example letter that was used in all cases at that time to alert citizens to the fact of ATO income matching processes going on in relation to their Centrelink accounts. These letters demonstrate that data matching, income averaging and ATO cross-checks were all commonplace under what was the last Labor government to deliver a budget surplus. It is a far cry, I would suggest, from the allegations that are made in the text of this matter of public importance.

Let's fast-forward to the next Labor government. In 2011 the Gillard government introduced an automated system of cross-matching data from two agencies. I've done the homework. I've got a couple of documents here that prove it: first, a joint press release from 2011 by the then human services minister, Ms Plibersek, and the Assistant Treasurer, Mr Shorten, announcing an automated system of income matching from the tax office and Centrelink. It sounds an awful lot like robodebt to me, but it's titled 'New data matching to recover millions in welfare dollars'. It states:

If people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.

It goes on—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

to state:

The automation—

There's a key word that Senator Pratt won't like—

of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.

Now, if that's not enough, I also have here a press release from the member for McMahon—yes, Mr Bowen—in which he boasts:

… Centrelink conducted 3.8 million payment reviews, resulting in the reduction of 641,000 payments, saving $2.27 billion using—

You guessed it: data matching—robodebt, no less. I also have, right here, an article from The Australian, a well-respected newspaper, titled: 'Labor flips on "robo-debt" system that Shorten, Plibersek pioneered'. It goes on to state, in what must be devastating words for those opposite:

Labor's leadership team of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek pioneered the robo-debt data-matching system Centrelink is using to target current and former welfare recipients for apparently not declaring their income properly, but now they argue it should be suspended.

That's really very interesting to me, given the outrage—the confected outrage, the froth and bubble—that we get from those opposite. You'd think, from the way they're talking, that this was a recent invention. But no, that's not the case at all.

If you don't like The Australian or if you're inclined to say, 'Oh, that's just some right-wing rag; don't believe them', well, the far-left publication The Guardian decided that it met their test, too. When you're getting the same thing published in The Australian and in The Guardianthose opposite love to quote The Guardianthen I think you can feel a little bit more comfortable that we aren't mincing things up. The Guardian concedes that the automated income-matching process was designed and implemented by Mr Shorten and Ms Plibersek. The Guardian article states:

The former Labor government did introduce the process—

You wouldn't know it from what you're hearing from those opposite. In fact, even all the way up until last year, Labor was all aboard the robodebt train. When they protest now, it's just not very convincing.

Let's do another little fact check. The policy costings that Labor took to the 2019 federal election were released by the Parliamentary Budget Office. When you have a little dig through those you'll notice they haven't made any of the changes that would be needed in their costings to reflect a reversal of the policy of robodebt. In fact, Labor's social security policies—the ones they, the very team we see opposite, brought to the 2019 federal election—did not include the reversal of the policy of using robodebt. Labor's own budget plans from the 2019 federal election did not include that reversal. In fact, they banked the expected savings from the operation of the robodebt program to fund their big-spending election commitments. They stand here and tell us they had nothing to do with it. It's pretty galling, if you ask me. It's another one of those occasions where it's fair to say that hypocrisy by name is Labor. Mr Shorten couldn't defend his own tragic record on robodebt when interviewed last year by journalist Patricia Karvelas. Even she wasn't buying the line. She said:

KARVELAS: You've spoken today about how much harm this program has done. Do you regret creating it and do you regret not opposing it before the election?

… … …

SHORTEN: Labor didn't create—

KARVELAS: No, Labor did create robodebt.

SHORTEN: No, well—

KARVELAS: I know; I've watched it. It did.

SHORTEN: Patricia, this is not government propaganda hour.

KARVELAS: Yes, but you created this computer generated system, right?

And of course the truth was a little too awkward to bear. In fact social welfare activist Asher Wolf also knows Labor's hypocrisy when it comes to robodebt. She tweeted on 30 May this year, 'Shorten only jumped on board the campaign against robodebt after he lost the 2019 election.'

What can we learn from all this? We know that income averaging and the automation of data crosschecking is an intergenerational Labor scheme invented, designed and championed by two Labor governments. It's Labor who should be apologising. They should be apologising for failing to be frank with the Australian people. It's Labor who should be apologising for their short memories or their creative writing or their looseness with the truth. Or maybe they should also apologise for their list of epic fails in boats, pink batts, cash for clunkers and school halls. We can add this one— (Time expired)