Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, we currently have a situation where we've got the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, in conjunction with Services Australia, having to regularly indicate that they are, for example, suspending payment cancellations because it turns out that the basis on which that was happening is unlawful. We've got a department that have said in estimates that they can't be certain that the targeted compliance framework, in the way that it's been operationalised—this is their language—is consistent with the legislative requirements, which is another way of saying that it's unlawful. We have had numerous occasions in the past where it seems that Services Australia or the department has miscalculated something or hasn't done it the way it's supposed to.

I note that Dr Rudge, in his evidence to the inquiry into this bill, said that whilst there is this general view that everybody thought that what they were doing was lawful at the time and was therefore fine there were different ways that the department could have apportioned people's income and that this unlawful way was chosen in particular because they took the view that it was more likely to uncover fraud. It was an active decision to do it that way. Minister, can you understand why people on income support are concerned that the government is again passing legislation to retrospectively validate something that was unlawful. I mean, robodebt was the most egregious example, but we have this ongoing issue where unlawful activity takes place and then the government and the department get a free pass. Can you understand why that causes such a level of concern and distrust amongst people on income support?