QUESTION: My question is to the Minister for Government Services. What did the Royal Commission into Robodebt’s Final Report find as to who the real victims of Robodebt were?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: I thank the Member for Higgins for her question about who the real victims of Robodebt were. I draw the attention of the Parliament to Volume 3 of the Royal Commission, Chapter 10, Effects on Robodebt on individuals, from pages 325 to 346. The Royal Commissioner forensically outlines who the real victims were.

The real victims were those who received confusing initial letters which people didn't understand how to reply to. The real victims were those who had changed their address from the Centrelink record, having got off Centrelink or were homeless. The real victims were those who had their onus of proof reversed, that after the first demand from the government they were required to prove the case wrong. A case of guilty until proven innocent. The real victims were those who were denied reviews because they couldn't provide the payslips of companies which had gone out of business. The real victims were the Centrelink staff required to carry out illegal orders of an unlawful policy. The real victims were those Australians who lived in rural and remote Australia who at no point were ever contemplated in the design of the Robodebt scheme. The real victims were those who suffered stigma, exacerbated by the political narrative of the successive Liberal governments. The real victims were those who suffered financial hardship and had to sell their possessions to pay an unlawfully raised debt. The real victims were those who suffered the effects of unfair accusations. The real victims were those who suffered trauma, anxiety, distress. The real victims were those who took their own lives. The real victims are the mothers of those who took their own lives. The real victims are all those Australians who lost trust in government because of an unlawful scheme run for four and a half years.

I've gone to who the real victims are. But one person who is not a real victim is the Member for Cook. Yesterday, the Member for Cook claimed that the adverse findings against him were disproportionate wrong, unsubstantiated or contradicted. The purpose of that statement was to frame himself as the real victim of a Robodebt Royal Commission. The member for Cook said, and I quote, that in making their finding, the Commission sought to reverse the onus of proof to establish their claim. Satire is truly dead in this country, when the Member for Cook complains about the reversal of onus of proof on him, but not the 434,000 people who did have their reverse onus.

And the Member for Cook then said the royal commission was a quasi-legal process, a new Morrisonian doctrine about the law. The Royal Commission was not quasi legal. It's real. It was constituted by the law. 46 days of public hearings, over 100 witnesses under oath.

And I can hear the Member, I can see the Member for Cook lip synching something. Well, let us be very clear. The victims of Robodebt never had their legal costs paid for. Never had the chance to see the evidence put against them.

The Member for Cook is a bottomless well of self-pity and not a drop of mercy for all of the real victims of Robodebt.

QUESTION: My question is to the Minister for Government Services. How do the actual findings of the Royal Commission into Robodebt compare with what members of former Liberal Governments say about Robodebt?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: The Member for Caldwell's question is very important to Australians because those opposite would like to think that Robodebt is now in the rear vision mirror of Australian politics, and they just want to move on. But the nation cannot move on until those who were in government, now in opposition, actually accept accountability and responsibility, because, sure, it is inevitable that if they don't learn the lessons of the past, then Australians can expect them again in the future.

Now, Government Ministers, the then-government Ministers have had a lot to say about Robodebt. The Member for Cook has said that the Royal Commission findings on him are just wrong and he, with his trademark blame shifting, just says this is a political lynching of himself and he just would like Labor to move on.

But how does the nation move on when the Member for Cook says one thing, but the Commission rejected as untrue Mr. Morrison's evidence. It says that, the Commission says, Mr. Morrison knew that the policy proposal that he brought forward to the Cabinet represented a complete reversal of the legal position without explanation. The Royal Commission said Mr. Morrison allowed Cabinet to be misled. I repeat that, because it seems that some on the frontbench don't realise, of the Opposition, Mr. Morrison allowed Cabinet to be misled because he didn't make the obvious inquiry. It goes on to say that the former Prime Minister of Australia failed to meet his ministerial responsibility to ensure that Cabinet was fully informed.

But it wasn't just the Member for Cook. A generation of Coalition Cabinet Ministers have had their legacies tainted by the unlawful actions of the Robodebt scheme. I remember Mr. Tudge saying he was going to find the welfare cheats and hunt them down. But the Commission said about former Minister Tudge that he made the decision to publicly release the personal details of one particular person to the media, following an opinion piece she wrote critical of her treatment by Centrelink. The Royal Commission said that Mr. Tudge's use of information about Social Security recipients and the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme's problems represented an abuse of that power. It said it was all the more reprehensible in view of the power imbalance between the Minister and the cohort of people upon whom it could be reasonably expected to depend upon the Minister.

There was, of course, our friend, the former member for Fadden, Mr. Robert, who came up with the new doctrine that Cabinet solidarity meant that he could actually make statements of fact as to the accuracy of debts which he knew could not be right. The Royal Commission said about that Cabinet Minister, nothing compels ministers to knowingly make false statements or statements they know are untrue. The real issue here that Australians want to hear is does the rest of the Coalition agree with Mr. Morrison about the Royal Commission or do they accept responsibilities for breaking the law for four and a half years?

QUESTION: My question is to the Minister for Government Services. Has the minister considered the finding of the robodebt royal commission that previous coalition governments were warned about the failures of robodebt, and what is his response?

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: The Robodebt Royal Commission not only looked at the circumstances surrounding the start of the lawbreaking scheme, it also addressed the question whether the lawbreaking against vulnerable people, why it went on for four and a half years and whether there are any red flags or warnings or signs that this scheme was wrong. The Royal Commission actually says that the beginning of 2017 was the point at which Robodebts’s unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent. The beginning of 2017. The Commission says that it should have been abandoned or revised drastically. An enormous amount of hardship and misery, as well as expense to government that it was so anxious to minimise would have been averted. But after hearing all the evidence, the Royal Commission said instead the path taken was to double down. To go on the attack in the media against those who complain and maintain the falsehood that the scheme had not changed at all.

The government was, the DHS and DSS Ministers maintained, acting righteously to recoup taxpayers money from the undeserving. So, 2017, warning signs ignored. The Commission says that the scheme trundled on. The cover up continued. It says that DSS, the Department of Social Services, seems to have taken little interest in the administrative appeal cases until mid-2018, when the Department of Human Services told the Department of Social Services that an AAT decision said that income averaging in the way of Robodebt was unlawful. There was an AAT decision. The AAT had put reliance on an article by Professor Carney, who subsequently wasn't reappointed to the AAT. There was draft advice from Clayton Hewitt saying, this is right.

But it was never acted on. They were told it was wrong, and it was never acted on. The Ombudsman, according to the Royal Commission, was deliberately misled. I remind the Coalition trying to gainfully ignore this, the Ombudsman was misled by the former government. This then was used by the government to resist scrutiny of the scheme.

So, there were many warnings about this scheme. Many warnings that the former Coalition government was engaging in mass lawbreaking of its own laws against the vulnerable. The question, though, for the current opposition and they've been strangely silent is, do they agree with the Member for Cook that this is just an unfair political attack? Surprisingly, the Leader of the Opposition has. But I think now we need clarity from the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition. Do you accept that the ill effects of the scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continue? And why don't you just say we broke the law for four and a half years and we are absolutely sorry?