David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Social Services (Senator Gallagher) to questions put by Senator Allman-Payne regarding the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme and the government's responses.

First of all, I want to acknowledge the continued presence in the chamber of Jenny Miller and Kath Madgwick, who both lost their boys to the appalling, criminal scandal that was robodebt. Of course, like so many Australians, they have been looking to the government to implement the recommendations from the royal commission. Of course, why do we have a royal commission? We have a royal commission to find out what on earth went wrong, but we also have a royal commission to fix what went wrong. The third reason we have a royal commission is so that we have the information needed to hold those who did wrong to account.

On all three levels, I'm sad to say, this government has not delivered for the victims and survivors of robodebt and their families. I acknowledge that there have been some modest changes by the government to some of the most extreme elements of robodebt, yet we do not see a comprehensive commitment by this government to say, 'Never again will we let automated decisions destroy people's lives.' We haven't seen that commitment to ensure there will always be human oversight—someone with a heart and a mind—before someone's benefits are taken off them. We look forward to that, and I commend the work of my colleague Senator Allman-Payne to bring forward active proposals so that we legislate for that.

I want to be clear—there's no barrier to this. The Greens will support the recommendations from the royal commission. We haven't seen this government legislate to remove the six-year debt limit. There are people surviving on next to nothing who could potentially face a debt that is 10 or 15 years old being dragged up and then have their benefits stopped. These people with almost nothing, no financial resources, being thrown into even more abject poverty. We say to the government: bring forward the legislation, and we'll join with you and put a legislative prohibition on chasing that debt.

We also haven't seen the action needed to ensure that vulnerable people are not thrown off benefits, people who we know, if they lose benefits, will fall into homelessness and their kids will fall into homelessness. They might have other vulnerabilities that mean their life can spiral out of control. Where is the clear prohibition, and when will the government introduce the clear prohibition to say that the most vulnerable people in our society will not be thrown into that spiral of poverty and despair that comes when they have their benefits cut off? Bring forward the legislation. We'll pass it in a heartbeat.

The final thing I'd like to contribute to this debate is that whilst the victims and survivors are looking at this parliament and saying, 'When will you legislate?' they're also asking: 'When will the architects of robodebt be held to account? When will those people on six-figure salaries that were ignoring the law and consciously putting into place illegal and harmful practices be held to account and lose their jobs and, if they engaged in illegal conduct, face criminal prosecutions?' When will that happen? When will there be a clear statement that the politicians and the senior bureaucrats who were responsible for robodebt, who did it with their eyes wide open, who knew it was harming people's lives, who turned away from the truth that it was actually killing people and taking their lives—when will those politicians and senior bureaucrats be held to account. When will they called out and named as corrupt? When will their names be on the front pages of newspapers and websites so we can say: 'That's who did it. You will never get another job in this country. You'll never get another job from the public service.' When are we going to see that?

When will we stop the secrecy? Right now, Jenny and Kath and all those who lost loved ones, millions of Australians, they're told that something is happening in the NACC and, 'Don't you worry about that.' Well, they're bloody well worried about it because they've seen the way this place works. They've seen the way the powerful are shielded from accountability. When they're told that a secret hearing in front of the NACC—a NACC which is riddled with a history, in its two short years, of failing to deal with conflicts of interest—is the pathway to justice, they don't believe it. Shine a light on this. Have public hearings into the scandal that is robodebt in the NACC and have this government implement the recommendations and make this system safe. (Time expired.)

Question agreed to.