E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC, AFTERNOON BRIEFING
THURSDAY 27 MAY 2020

SUBJECT/S: Robodebt; Morrison Government Stimulus announcement; U.S protests and President Trump

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: The Prime Minister is refusing to apologise for the Government’s Robodebt scheme, saying now is not the time. The scheme saw hundreds of thousands of people issued with computer generated debt notices, which the Government now concedes were unlawful. More than $700 million will be refunded. The Attorney-General Christian Porter yesterday refused to apologise, and Scott Morrison says with a related court case underway, he won’t be saying sorry either.


SCOTT MORRISON CLIP: We’re still working through some legal procedures here, right now. And so, I think the time for those sorts of statements are at another time, not right now. We’re in the middle of making this right, but I want to stress again that the principle that sits at the heart of this issue is not the technology, what sits at the heart of this issue is the principle of income averaging. And income averaging has been practiced by Labor and Coalition Governments for a long period of time.


KARVELAS: Bill Shorten is the Shadow Minister for Government Services and joins us this afternoon. Bill Shorten, welcome.

BILL SHORTEN: Good afternoon, Patricia.

KARVELAS: Let's start with Robodebts, the government won't apologise because they say there's a class action afoot. Isn't that reasonable while the Commonwealth is going through the courts?

SHORTEN: Oh, these are weasel words. The reality is that the Commonwealth wouldn't be paying back $721 million to 373,000 Australians if it had done the right thing. It's doing it because it did the wrong thing. It's unlawful. And these are just word games from a government who's chronically incapable of accepting that it behaved unlawfully for years.

KARVELAS: So you don't accept that, if the word "sorry" was used, it would have any effect on court proceedings?

SHORTEN: Oh... No, that's just rubbish.

KARVELAS: Do you expect the price tag to go up? You mentioned the $721 million - now, compensation, is of course, on the agenda. Should the government pay compensation, and how might that change the price tag here?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, you know, some people are saying, "Oh, the government's doing a great job," and "how dare you raise this issue of Robodebt". Why this issue is important - the government charged hundreds of thousands of Australians and said, "you owe us the equivalent of $721 million." So the money that the Commonwealth is giving back to the people was always the people's money. The government was unjustly enriching itself. All they're doing is giving back the money they robbed from the people. Now this question of interest and damages. Did you know that, if you owed the Commonwealth, Patricia - and I'm sure you don't, but if you did, after a certain period of time, the Government - the Morrison Government - can charge you 7.5% interest? So, in other words, if you've got government money and you haven't given it to them - it's legitimate debt - bang, you've got to pay interest on it. So, why doesn't the Government - who's taken, for 4.5 years upwards of $720 million - why don't they have to pay some interest on the money they unjustly took? That's the problem. This incompetent government who can't say sorry, who's behaved in an unlawful manner for years - now they're going to cost the taxpayer money because they took other people's money when they had no right to it at all. It was a shakedown racket.

KARVELAS: You've referred to suicides, trauma, obviously a lot of stress that this has caused families and individuals. Given the kind of human toll - and we can't quite quantify it, but we know that it's been quite severe for some people - should there be a judicial inquiry?

SHORTEN: I think there's got to be some inquiry. Yes, I think there should be some form of inquiry. There has been a human toll. When you get a letter from the government asserting you owe them money, for a lot of people, they're living on the bread line as it is. They're below the bread line. These uni students. These are poor people. These are vulnerable people. Some people with mental illness. All of a sudden, the government's chasing you for a debt which you don't think exists or you don't know it exists or you can't remember it exists, and all of a sudden you've got debt collectors, you've got legal action. This is a terrible pressure, and it's been going on for 4.5 years. The Prime Minister says he wants to make it right. Well, he's the one who introduced and announced it with his now-Attorney-General, and the thing is, for 4.5 years, people have been complaining about the unfairness, but what the class-action's done - and I'm pleased to be part of helping mobilise the class-action - is it's meant the government's run out of excuses. It has to front up to court. The only reason that Mr Morrison, Mr Robert, or the rest of the Morrison Government are talking about this unlawful behaviour, is because there's a class-action and they've got to go to court to justify their behaviour.

KARVELAS: So you do think there should be a judicial investigation or inquiry?

SHORTEN: Whatever the form is - I don't know if it should be a judicial inquiry. I haven't formed a view - obviously we've got to talk, through the opposition, on that. I do think the parliament needs to talk further about it. It's not satisfactory, is it, that the Government says, "My bad - here's $721 million plus" - and no-one's responsible? They raised all the issues around Pink Batts, they've never been shy of attacking Labor. Well, how can someone get this so wrong that, for 4.5 years, they're chasing people for debts unlawfully? Look, how come no-one is responsible in the Government for this?

KARVELAS: Scott Morrison does say...(SHORTEN: There should be some form of inquiry) ...the Government Services minister, Stuart Robert, still has his full support. I know Labor's been arguing something very different about Stuart Robert. Why should Stuart Robert take the fall? You mentioned Scott Morrison and Attorney-General as being the people who actually announced this thing. Why is the current minister the one that should fall?

SHORTEN: Well, I think it goes further than the current Minister. I mean, I called it out as unlawful in September of last year, and the Government scoffed at us. The Government's been dragging its feet. Like, people have been saying this scheme's fundamentally unfair for years. A lot of grassroots activists, the opposition, the non-government parties. And then I've certainly formed the view, actually, that it's unlawful. So I don't think the buck only stops with Minister Stuart Robert. I mean, how can this be that the government was just using its power to unlawfully demand that battling Aussies have to pay it money? And this is an issue which doesn't just affect these people. We've got more people than ever, courtesy of COVID-19, who are receiving government payments because it's the safety net. How do we know this government's learned the lessons? If they won't admit they're sorry, if they had to be dragged kicking and screaming by people taking them to court, this is a scandal which stain spreads through people’s trust in Government. Never forget, Patricia, Mr Morrison's only talking about this issue because ordinary Aussies had to go to court to get the government to admit it was unlawful. If they hadn't done that, the legal aid commission in Victoria last year, would still be doing it.

KARVELAS: Let's go to that - you talk about current Australians on the welfare system for whatever reason. Mutual obligation requirements such as job interviews actually will begin again next Tuesday, the Social Services Minister Anne Ruston says it will be a gradual process and applicants won't be penalised for failing to meet that during the initial staged period. Do you think mutual obligations should start next week?

SHORTEN: I don't know what's safe and what isn't safe. That should be the first question. Kicking people off the safety net if it's not safe for them to go and do interviews, to me, seems very harsh. So I'd like to examine the medical basis upon which people are saying it's safe. We've still got the government saying "Work from home, except if you're unemployed - then you've got to do a certain number of job interviews." I don't understand why the government thinks it's not safe for some people but it's safe for other people. I - so, you know, we've just got to get to the bottom of that.

KARVELAS: How about the actual jobs available as well? Obviously we're seeing record levels of unemployment. There's only so many jobs you can apply for because they appear not to exist at the moment.

SHORTEN: Well, that's true. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's a sort of an imaginary goal that some people have got to go and find and look for jobs where millions of others can't find those same jobs. I worry about, in the tighter labour market and higher unemployment which will be at higher levels for some time to come - I'm worried that older Australians will further receive the brunt, people with disabilities, Indigenous Australians, so the groups who have been missing out in the employment options before COVID-19, I'm now worried are going to be even more exposed in this tough economic time. Anyway, it's good to know the government will chase you!

KARVEAS: The federal government is considering giving householders cash grants for home renovations. That's one of the options it's looking at for more stimulus. Is that a good way to stimulate the sector and the economy?

SHORTEN: Well, if I can be really blunt, it's probably not the dumbest idea I've heard this government say. But what I think is we need more social housing, we need to help first-home buyers into the market. I'd like to do more for front-line workers. So we haven't seen all the detail of it. I'm not going to immediately say it's all bad. But, again, part of me also has this nagging concern that, when you just hand out grants to people, does it just force up the price of what you're buying and it doesn't change the value? On the other hand, construction is a fundamental engine room of the economy, so I think we've got to see the detail of what they're saying. The creation and maintenance of construction jobs and tradies' jobs is important.

KARVELAS: You've been watching what's unfolding in the United States. What do you make of the awful scenes we're seeing unfold?

SHORTEN: Gee, it's so terrible. it makes me think a couple of things. One is it's the real perfect storm of events, isn't it? You've got the pandemic, and tens of thousands of Americans dying. You've got the equivalent of depression - in economic sense, massive unemployment queues. You've got Donald Trump there making pretty divisive comments periodically. And you've got the ongoing issue of racial violence, and then it's all erupted. I can't help but think back, in 2016, remember there was the American NFL athlete, I think his name was Colin Kaepernick, if I've pronounced it right - when they play the anthem, he would kneel just to make a bit of a protest to say that we need to do more for the treatment of black Americans. That was a peaceful protest. And at the time, some people said, "How dare he do that peaceful protest." I now wonder if that wasn’t a missed opportunity.

KARVELAS: Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Donald Trump is "deliberately a divisive leader" who "seeks to divide the US" or to "exploit division", that he says "far from making America great again, he makes America weaker". Do you share those sentiments?

SHORTEN: Well, Malcolm's got his way of putting things. I think a couple of things. Donald Trump makes me, and many Australians, pleased that we're Australians, not Americans. He's the President. Their electoral system have picked him. Australia's got to deal with whoever they pick. But I think the important role of leadership is not to set different groups against each other, but to try and find the common ground. You can't always do that. So I - you know, America's been very good to Australia over the years with our security alliance. But I think I'm like a lot of Australians, and a lot of what's said on social media by the current President Trump, is deeply disturbing. It's not consistent with a lot of the values I think even both sides of Australian politics holds.

KARVELAS: The other element here is that many Australians are pointing out, particularly Indigenous Australians, that we have our own issues here. There have been 432 Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia since 1991. Should that also be our focus now?

SHORTEN: Sure. The reality is that the colour of your skin shouldn't be a predictor of your life expectancy, your chances to go to uni, your likelihood to go to jail, your health outcomes. But unfortunately, in Australia, it is. Again, this is the importance of reconciliation, it's the importance of making sure that we empower Aboriginal people to have a say in their own futures. So I think it is a wake-up call for us. I don't say that we're like America, but I don't necessarily think that the problems of our First Nations people, a lot of them would say, "We're not so far away from some of the problems that people in America are complaining about."

KARVELAS: Bill Shorten, thank you for joining us.

SHORTEN: Lovely to talk to you, Patricia.