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

Today I want to send strength and solidarity to the thousands and thousands of people around this country whose lives were devastated by the robodebt scandal. I want to send strength and solidarity to people like Kath Madgwick, who lost her son, Jarrad, and Jenny Miller, who lost her son, Rhys, and who have been tireless advocates around getting justice for robodebt victims.

I want to recognise that, right around the country, victims of robodebt feel like yesterday's NACC findings were a punch in the guts, because the people at the top, the architects of robodebt, have gotten away scot-free. Many of the senior officials who appear in the sealed section for breaches of their responsibilities are still in the very same departments that are rolling out the punitive Targeted Compliance Framework and mutual obligations system. They are still in a department that has repeatedly been found to be acting unlawfully. They are still in a department that continually has to retrospectively legislate to fix up things that are unlawful. They are still in a department whose head and whose minister cannot reassure us that the entire welfare system, the mutual obligations system in particular—the Targeted Compliance Framework that punches down and punishes vulnerable people—is lawful. We have seen, time and time again, the most vulnerable people in this country bear the brunt of a system that is broken, and, yesterday, those people found out that they are not going to get justice.