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

The government has acted on 75 per cent of the recommendations made by the robodebt royal commission, with a broad range of measures introduced to restore trust across the social security system. I remind the chamber that it was the government that commissioned the royal commission into robodebt, so that we could understand very clearly what went on there and make sure it never, ever happens again. We've also invested millions to ensure that a failure like robodebt will never happen again. We've accepted or accepted in principle all 56 recommendations made by the robodebt royal commission, and we remain committed to implementing them all. Some of them are complex, and we need time to work through them. This package is a step towards systemic social security debt reform.

In terms of recommendation 18.2, we won't be supporting Senator Allman-Payne's amendment. It seeks to reinstate the statute of limitations. The government has agreed in principle to this recommendation, and we know it is an important area of work that needs to be completed. The Minister for Social Services is leading this process to examine how an effective statute of limitations would operate in practice. The old six-year statute of limitations was not as effective as it could have been and did not provide a meaningful limit on the raising and recovery of historic debts. For this measure to be effective, the government does believe it needs to be designed properly and consulted on—a process that the government intends to carry out thoroughly. They do come with significant budget impacts and so we need to consider that through the budget process. The government will work across government to ensure that, as this work is completed, we fully understand all of the impacts.

I should also note that increasing the small debt waiver to $250 and waiving 1.2 million undetermined debts this financial year alone—as this bill does, if it's allowed to pass—will remove more debts from the backlog than reinstating the old statute of limitations would, so can we please pass the bill.