E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS ALAN JONES SHOW
TUESDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2020

SUBJECTS: $1.2 billion Robodebt settlement; Labor’s climate policy; Labor leadership.

ALAN JONES, HOST: Well, good evening and thank you for joining us. Let's get straight into it with yet another scandalous drain on taxpayers money, 430,000 welfare recipients were wrongly accused by the Turnbull and Morrison Governments of misreporting their income, infamously known as the Robodebt Welfare Recovery Scheme. The matter was settled yesterday. The former federal Labor Opposition Leader, Bill Shorten, who is now the Government Services spokesman, instigated the case when he identified the appalling injustice done to people who couldn't defend themselves. Now, no one condones welfare cheats. We should never forget that money paid in welfare is money that someone else first has to earn. Unless, of course, you live in the current environment where it seems we can borrow limitless amounts of money to pay everybody who puts their hand out. It's called the Coronavirus Response now, with debt spiralling beyond a trillion dollars, that's what we've got now. That's just Canberra. But this ruthless and impersonal way of pursuing welfare recipients was always brutal and the methodology flawed. As Bill Shorten has rightly said, the only reason the Morrison Government surrendered yesterday was that they had the hot breath of the court on their throat. The background of this is pretty simple. In September 2019, Mr Shorten used his first post-election press conference to declare that he believed the Robodebt scheme was illegal. It used pay data from the Tax Office to pursue welfare recipients whom it had accused of understating their income in order to claim more welfare. This all started when Scott Morrison was Treasurer. All these people who were victims of the scheme were accused of misreporting their income. The Government used averaged income data to pursue debt that individuals allegedly owed the Government because they'd allegedly overclaimed on welfare. Averaging income data has been a practise since the days of Hawke and Keating, but it was automated by the Turnbull/Morrison Government, Morrison was the Treasurer, and they automated the process. So 430,000 victims were wrongly pursued. A class action against the Government was scheduled to begin in the federal court yesterday. Bill Shorten warned that the Government would settle, some might say, buckle. He was right. There was one simple reason for the settlement, with our money, I might add, and that is ministers, including the then Treasurer, Scott Morrison, would have been called to appear so at 1.2 billion dollar settlement, the country's largest class action payout ever settled on the morning of a scheduled trial because the scheme was botched by the Government, which has still not accepted any liability. Bill Shorten joins me from Canberra. Mr Shorten, good evening. Thank you for your time. This was to begin in the Federal Court yesterday. The Morrison Government ran for cover.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: They did. Robodebt was a scheme which the Government lost control of. It wasn't legal. A year ago, I and plaintiffs worked with a class action law firm to try and nail the Government's feet to the ground to get to the bottom of this and to get the money which the Government illegally took from people repaid back to them. So I'm very keen through you, Alan, to your viewer network, to make it clear that a lot of the 1.2 billion dollars is actually the money of the 430,000 victims of the Government who paid the Government when they didn't owe the money to the Government. And the class action has forced the Government to give the money of the people back to the people.

JONES: Yes. If I can just if I can cite those figures, 1.2 billion, I understand Bill Shorten, there's 112 million in compensation. 720 million will be paid back and then 400 million in unlawful demands has been wiped. But when you raised it in 2019 after the last federal election and said it was illegal, Stuart Robert, the Government Services Minister and a key factional ally of the Prime Minister, said it was a political stunt.

SHORTEN: They did, they just said nothing to see here, move along. And in fact, for a number of years, the Government's been saying that there's this vast treasure chest of money out there, that these people have been ripping off from the Government and they very much stigmatised people on Centrelink. But the problem here is that the Government just simply relied on a computer algorithm and it didn't do the human checking, which it used to do and which it should do. And essentially in an anathema in a Westminster democracy, it reversed the burden of proof. The Government said, based upon what the computer program spelled out, that the person who was accused of owing the debt, well they had to prove that they didn't owe the debt. And that is now sort of a common law system. And our system of statute based laws should never be the case that the onus of proof is reversed upon the accused for a civil debate when the government hasn't made the case.

JONES: Now, in June, the Prime Minister - yeah, I agree with all of that. I think it's a horrific set up. I mean, if people legitimately are entitled to welfare, they haven't got to be pursued to their grave. Now, in June, the Prime Minister apologised for any hurt or harm and said he would quite deeply regret any hardship that's been caused to people. But he's now said he won't be offering a fresh apology to the scheme's victims. Now, just explain, because as part of the settlement, the Government says it won't admit to any liability or knowledge of the scheme's flaws. Now, who is liable if you're forking out 1.2 billion dollars in a settlement?

SHORTEN: You don't need to be a Rhodes Scholar to work at that. On one hand, when the Government says we're not liable, but on the other hand, here's 1.2 billion dollars right back at you. I'd say there's 1.2 billion admissions of liabilities, isn't there, Alan?

JONES: Right, now the Labor Party is saying they want a Royal Commission and will pursue the former Human Services Minister, Alan Tudge, and the Government Services Minister, Stuart Robert, over the scheme. I mean, what would that achieve? Hasn't the scheme wasted enough taxpayers money?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, the Government still hasn't explained how it happened. So how can we be guaranteed that it won't happen again? How did we get ourselves into a set of circumstances where ministers either knew that the law was being broken or never bothered to find out what the law did? How do we get into the situation with senior public servants, not the Centrelink staff at the counter, but the senior public service mandarins authorised a scheme which was illegal. And until we understand how that mistake occurred and until we understand how it can be avoided in the future, we're destined to repeat the mistakes of history, aren't we?

JONES: It's an awful lot of money. 1.2 billion. That's not all, there's the question of legal fees. On top of all of this, didn't the Government continue to pay an army of lawyers to fight this class action until a settlement was reached yesterday on the steps of the court?

SHORTEN: Well, we said that the class action will be filed last November, December, which it was, but the Government, because it's taxpayer money, had no skin in the game - well they should have, but they acted as if they didn't. So they only settled a year later, but they already were on notice. A Federal Court decision in November of last year said that it was illegal. They started paying back some of the money in May, but they were still paying expensive QC’s, right down to the death knock yesterday, when the court was due to hear the full matter of trial. So understand the Morrison Government on Robodebt will fight to the last dollar of the taxpayer just so they don't look stupid.

JONES: Yes, I mean, it's easy to do it with someone else's money, isn't it? Millions of dollars.

SHORTEN: No skin in the game.

JONES: Just this one. To viewers who are watching this, Mr Shorten, if there are somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5 million outstanding, as I understand, social welfare debts with a value of 5 billion, how would you in Government recover that money?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, you've got to verify that it exists and the obligation exists on the Government. So by all means, compare data from the Department of Social Security, what the claimant says against what Tax Office records show. Then if there's a red flag raised in a computer program, then you get trained human compliance officers to go and speak to the employers, to go and find out the truth of the matter. It is not enough to discharge the Government's obligation to its citizens to simply rely on one proof point the Tax Office data and assert that the onus is reversed to the individual. I would just follow due process. Follow due process. No shortcuts.

JONES: Are you convinced that the 430,000 people who have been terrorised, I mean, this is awfully traumatic experience for someone to go through, are they going to be appropriately either refunded or compensated?

SHORTEN: Well, for a lot of people, the compensation, the amounts won't be very great, but for a lot of people, they just never wanted to go through the process to begin with, said all those families to people who couldn't get jobs because they had a debt finding, to families and people who had shame and stigma – a lot of people don't want to be on Centrelink and were embarrassed by these debts. No, this is compensation is not the same as it should never have happened to begin with. But it is recognition. And I hope for a lot of people it's recognition that eventually the system got it right and that, you know, people acknowledge that they were mistreated.

JONES: And there’s some finality. Let's come to something else, because no one knows better than you the political cost of Labor's energy policies. You will remember that I did tell you in another environment you couldn't win an election talking about unachievable goals for emissions reductions, 45 percent. I think it was about 2030. The Government was between 26 and 28 per cent. Doesn't this mean, though, that your energy spokesman, Mark Butler, when you were Leader, failed you and actually energy policy cost you the Prime Ministership, but Butler still has the portfolio.

SHORTEN: A couple of points, yes I do remember you giving me that advice, but to be fair, you give me advice from time to time as you give all politicians, so that is true. Listen, politics should be a team environment. I was the captain of the team. So as I said on election night, I took responsibility for the loss.

JONES: But my point is this is a serious issue because Labor is talking net zero emissions by 2050, so it opens the door to be belted up again. Butler has made a hash of it. Many Liberals are not happy, I might add, with the Government's energy policy pushing coal fired power plants out of operation and insisting that capacity be replaced by renewables. Isn't it true what Joel Fitzgibbon says, that Labor has become defined by its climate change policies, most of which have been rejected by the electorate?

SHORTEN: I think there's a few points in what you say, who the Shadow Ministers are is the prerogative of the Leader. And so I'm not going to start editorialising who should have what job. When I was leader, I wouldn't have wanted any of my colleagues to do that. So I'll adhere to the standard I would set myself. In terms of energy policy, there's no question it's been very vexed. It's been very vexed. And Labor certainly at the last election had trouble convincing people, rightly or wrongly, that it wasn't going to jeopardise jobs. So I think that for any debate about energy, we need to put jobs in the centre of it. People need to understand where they fit in. Otherwise they're going to say, well, if I can't see where I fit in, then good luck to you, I’m not going to support you.

JONES: But as Joel Fitzgibbon says, the figures don't lie, do they? I mean, the Labor primary vote in 1987 was 48.2 per cent at the last federal election, 33 per cent now. Joel Fitzgibbon says that workers in the coal industry, and I quote, constantly hear people say that their chosen career, mining, represents an existential threat to humankind and it must be stopped in its tracks. Labor in the 21st century, he says, talks more about climate change than it does about jobs. How do you argue with that? When Labor, Joel Fitzgibbon, suffered a 14.2 percent swing on the primaries.

SHORTEN: Well, Hawkie was lucky enough not to have to deal with the Greens. And I find the Greens problematic, and they've taken some of our primary vote to the left. I think the bigger issue is Labor is a party which seeks to form government. To do that, we've got to win people in the centre. And so it comes down to jobs. I mean, one of the issues isn’t 2050, I think a lot of the world has moved to a commitment on 2050 zero net emissions, including organisations like the National Farmers Federation. But if your proposition is that, can we take to the next election our 2030 targets that we took to the last two? Well, since we formed those 2030 targets at the last election, that was in 2015 the next election, I assume if Mr Morrison's right will be in 2022. Obviously I think it is hard to take the same 2030 targets seven years after they were formed, so it will be a matter for the party to determine.

JONES: But Bill Shorten, you may not believe this, but I get thousands and I mean thousands and thousands of emails and texts every night on this program. Two points have emerged in the last week. What Fitzgibbon is saying is supported by stacks of Labor voters and Liberal voters. And that means with the Liberal Party talking to Joe Biden about his green scheme and this Matt Keane in New South Wales who’s more green than the Greens, embrace Fitzgibbon. And you might have the oleaginous Dreyfus and his ilk offside, but the grassroots of Labor and Liberal would come to the cause.

SHORTEN: I’ve got to go and check the meaning of oleaginous.

JONES: You can check it out, your wife will tell you she's smarter than you are.

SHORTEN: Most wives are.

JONES: Yeah, but don’t you understand that point?

SHORTEN: I see that. And I think that since the Greens political party has risen, the environmental debate's gone backwards, not forwards. At least in Hawke's time, he could advance the case on the environment across a range of issues. Listen, I think that we've got to make sure that people associate Labor with jobs and more jobs, so people who want to find jobs can.

JONES: But you know Troy Bramston, you’ve got a real understanding of the Labor machinery and what's going on. He says Albanese will be dumped before the next election. He says, and I quote, today, Labor's become a zombie party steered by a lifeless leader. The mood's exceedingly bleak. Labor has not learnt the lessons of its recent defeat. What do you make of that?

SHORTEN: Well, that’s Troy's opinion, you know, and I guess Charles Dickens used to write dismal views about England, too, and not everyone agreed with that.

JONES: No, he says, to be fair –

SHORTEN: On the leadership stuff, I don’t see it. I don’t see it.

JONES: He says you'll sit out the next contest, so he's not implicating you. But if winning is more important than playing ideological and factional games, now Plibersek was your deputy, could she win Government?

SHORTEN: She's a great person and I have a very high opinion of her. There's no vacancy, Albo’s the leader and I don't see the sort of murmurs or the push for change that Troy’s identifying. And I just want to say to viewers who get sick of disunity; I got a good go from Labor. And, you know, I think unity is the green fee you pay in politics just to get on the course. And I do think that unity of Labor is, very important and we’ve got to keep pushing it.

JONES: But you don’t have it Bill, you don't have it. I mean, it's a golden rule in politics. And you know this. If you do what you did yesterday, you'll get yesterday's result. So if you were to change energy policy from what was yesterday and change the leader, you change the dynamics. Doesn't that sound credible?

SHORTEN: Listen, I think it is much more than that, and I think that Albo is doing a good job. I believe that any election is winnable. But what we've got to not do is take people for granted. One thing I've learnt from the last election is, you know, I might have a view about what's right and wrong and what's fair and unfair, but you've got to put yourself in the shoes of everyone else as well as yourself. And I think when we do that, when we understand that we're a diverse country and that people are motivated by the well-being of their families, they want to see their kids get ahead. They want to have security in retirement. They want to have a good, solid job. When we've got policies which address those questions, then this is winnable.

JONES: All right. Good to talk to you, good to talk to you. And we'll talk again. Really good to talk to you. There he is, Bill Shorten.

SHORTEN: Thank you, look forward to it, yeah likewise.