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

We will be opposing this amendment. As Senator Allman-Payne has outlined, we have agreed in principle to this recommendation, and we are working through it. The Minister for Social Services is leading that work to examine how an effective statute of limitations would operate. 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 recovery of historic debts. For this measure to be effective, it needs to be carefully designed and consulted on, a process the government is carrying out carefully.

I would also say that it was this government that established the robodebt royal commission, and it's this government that is implementing the recommendations of the robodebt royal commission. I can assure those in this chamber that we would not in any sense ever entertain the unlawful scheme that was put forward by the former government, which actually wasn't about legitimate debt recovery; it was about pursuing Australians for debts that they didn't owe and hadn't incurred and threatening them with jail if they didn't pay up. So that's fundamentally different.

Yes, a recommendation came out of the robodebt royal commission, which we will respond to, but the policy failure of robodebt didn't have anything to do with the statute of limitations. It had something to do with an unlawful policy where the government of a country pursued its own citizens for debts they didn't owe and hounded them and their families to the most tragic of outcomes for some. It caused enduring grief and loss for too many Australians. This is something the minister is working through. It does have budget implications. I know the Greens don't have to worry about that. That's fine. But we have to respond to that and think that through, and that's the work that both Minister Plibersek and I will continue to do.

I also want to put on the record that I object to the comment made by Senator Allman-Payne. I think she called it a 'department that constantly gets payments wrong'. It was roughly that language. I don't accept that. If you looked at the work that's done in Services Australia and the Department of Social Services and you saw the amount of payments going out, the responsiveness and the level of work that goes in at the coalface to support vulnerable and low-income Australians who rely on payments to support them, I don't think you would come in here and make a claim like that. Yes, there are issues that we have to respond to in relation to legal compliance, but I strongly support Services Australia in the work that they do every day to make sure that people who rely on Services Australia get the best advice and access to the payments that they're entitled to and that they deserve.