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

I thank Senator Tyrrell for the question. This is an issue that we have talked about, and indeed we have discussed at estimates some of the issues that have arisen around the implementation of income support payments and areas where agencies have been advised that they are not in compliance with the law and where the policy intent is not necessarily supported by the legal framework.

Since coming into this portfolio, I have been discussing this with Services Australia but also the policy department under Minister Plibersek to consolidate all the areas where there are concerns. There are some where it's around legal compliance. There are others where it's around policy compliance. We're trying to pull that all together and work our way through how we are addressing each one of them. There are a number of areas, and we have fixed up a couple of those in the bill that was passed in December. There is another bill coming in—I think it's coming into the House next week—that deals with a number of other areas. I think there will be further amendments that we will have to bring to this chamber to deal with it where the understanding was that there weren't any legal compliance issues but where new advice has provided that there are. We are working through all of those.

It is not discretionary about whether government agencies follow the law. They must follow the law. Where there are issues identified, where compliance has been questioned or not supported by legal advice, then the job is to bring it here and deal with those matters and address them through amendments or by changing the way it's implemented through Services Australia.