Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Neill for her question and also for the role that she played in uncovering many of the details of that shameful and illegal scheme that was operated by the former government. Over many years, I sat and watched you at estimates, Senator O'Neill, questioning Services Australia about what was going on. As we now know, with the royal commission we have the full details of that shameful period in public administration, which turned out to be an illegal scheme, operated for a number of years under a number of ministers with the architect, of course, being Mr Scott Morrison, the former Prime Minister.

Today the Albanese government has formally responded to all 56 recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. We have agreed or agreed in principle to all 56 of the royal commission's recommendations as part of the ongoing work to restore faith, integrity and trust in government. On behalf of the government and the Australian people, I thank Commissioner Holmes and her team for their dedication, professionalism and forensic work on the royal commission. Today's response notes the ways in which our government will work to implement the recommendations of that royal commission.

To support that work, we are providing some extra investment and new funding to a number of different parts of government, including for the Ombudsman and in public administration, to support implementation of the commissioner's recommendations. This is in addition to the extra resourcing that was announced, I think last week, for Services Australia to improve frontline service delivery. We're committed to putting people back at the centre of the work of government and to investing in better services for the Australian community. We'll continue to implement the reforms to strengthen the APS and bolster the power of oversight agencies to ensure a failure like robodebt can never ever happen again. It was a budget—