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

I thank Senator Allman-Payne for the question and acknowledge those in the gallery that she referenced in her question. We have since coming to government been doing a lot of work about making sure that our systems are right and that they're backed legislatively—that we have the legal backing for the way we deliver services to the Australian people, who are right to draw attention to robodebt. There has been enormous work done over the last parliament through both a royal commission and the response to the royal commission. I think that has significantly changed the way the Public Service works and the way we deliver services to the Australian people. There are a number of areas where work is underway, across both Minister Plibersek's and my portfolio in government services, to ensure that the policy intent of the way we deliver services is supported by law. There are some areas which I think have been drawn to attention, including by the ombudsman, where there needs to be further law reform, further legislation to deal with those. We will continue to work through those as we can. There is work underway, I can assure you, across government in relation to that. I'm not specifically aware of the individual situation that you mentioned, but we have taken some decisions around remediation of debts and making the debt recovery system fairer, including looking at low-level debts and how we deal with those. That work is being led by Minister Plibersek, working closely with me as Minister for Government Services.