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

Thank you very much, Deputy President. It is on the same matter. I also indicate that I know that there are other senators in the chamber and that there are a number of reports and that this is a time-limited debate for 60 minutes, as I understand it, so I know that people will want to make a contribution.

I'm going to make a short contribution on robodebt because I think Senator Rice has articulated very clearly the findings that are embedded in this interim report. I also want to acknowledge that we all miss Senator Siewert and her passionate energy for this. I note that this is another interim report that makes some really serious recommendations. I say again in this place, for the fifth time, this government inflicted illegal debts on its own people. Over a million people have been impacted. The government was found to have illegally raised debts and sent them out and demanded money from Australian people. They sent debt collectors to the doors of people who have never, ever in their lives had a problem with the government or the law. They reached into the homes of what they call the 'quiet Australians'; I call them the decent Australians—the ones who get up every day and do their work and look after their families and abide by the law and make a contribution to this great country. No-one was safe from Mr Morrison. As the Treasurer, he cooked this up, and he cooked it up with or without legal advice, and, either way, that is a diabolical problem for this country. It cannot be allowed to stand.

We are calling for the legal advice that gave the government comfort that it could go ahead and construct a system called robodebt that was, later on, found by the legal system to be illegal. It is not a little thing when the government acts illegally and attacks its own people, so we need to get to the bottom of it. We need to find out how such a thing could have happened and we need to prevent it from ever happening again. I gave my word to two women whose sons were so overwhelmed by being hounded for this debt by their own government that they simply lost the will to survive. And they are no longer with us. This is a sad reality for Australians, and if this speech triggers any concerns for you I encourage you to contact the public health support lines, like Beyond Blue and the Black Dog Institute, because those two young men didn't and they are not with us. But their mothers are fighting for recognition of what this government did to two young Australian men, and a whole lot more people. And I will not let this go.

People say: 'Robodebt—you know, that's a couple of years ago; you should get over it.' Well, I'm not going to get over it, because when you become the government there is a huge responsibility that sits on your shoulders, and that is to act in line with the Constitution and it is to act in line with the law of the land, and it is to act in a way that doesn't drive the people of the nation that you're supposed to be serving to suicide action—to despair and to brokenness and to mental ill-health—from being attacked by their own government. So I will not let this rest. I will not let this pass. And there are colleagues here with me who will continue to hold this government to account.

They can use all of the technical language that they want to diminish this, but this is a gross failure of government. It is a shame on our history. It is a blight on the parliamentary history of this country. It is no small thing. It cannot be swept under the carpet. So let's keep picking up that carpet and looking at the ugliness of what this government has advanced in its attack on the people of this country.

There are some very clear directions about what the government has to do. Show up. Provide the information. Let the Senate see what went on. Let us make sure that this never happens again. If you can't show up and put it here in public, there's an option for you to give it in camera. If you can't do that, there's more action.

But this is not going away. It is not going away. And I honour all those families and individuals who were brave enough to participate in the inquiries that we've undertaken, on their behalf, to get to the bottom of this.

Robodebt was the infliction of illegal debts by this government on the Australian people. It cannot be allowed to go misunderstood. We need to know how we got to that point. The government has a responsibility to the Senate, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Australians who were terribly impacted, to enable us get to the bottom of that problem. So I call on the minister: Do your job. Don't come in here with weasel words. Come in here with the documents. It's time. Cough it up. Tell the truth. I know it's not the usual pattern for this government, but it's time. The people affected by robodebt deserved so much better than they got from this government, and they are—through us, here in the Senate—calling on us to provide them with some understanding of how a government could get it so wrong and to give them the protections that they need going forward so that it can never happen again. So I endorse the report and I seek the support of the Senate.