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

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

LAURA JAYES, HOST: The Morrison Government will pay out 1.2 billion dollars to 430,000 former welfare recipients. It's the largest class action payout in history. The payout to victims of the so-called Robodebt scheme includes compensation of one hundred and twelve million dollars, as well as seven hundred twenty million dollars paid back, and 400 million dollars in unlawful demands wiped. The scheme has been widely criticised for using computer algorithms to raise debts against hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients. Labor’s Government Services spokesperson who we’ll speak to in just a moment, has condemned this as an illegal protection racket. This is what the minister in charge, Stuart Robert, had to say this morning.

VIDEO PACKAGE OF MINSTER STUART ROBERT: Use of ATO average income data to determine eligibility for benefits goes back decades and decades, almost 30 years to the Hawke and Keating years. So this has been a part of the social welfare and social services platform for decades and decades and decades, it’s simply this Government that has finally turned that off and decided that further proof points will be sufficient to raise debts. So unfortunately, it's been a long standing practice.

JAYES: Let's go live now to the Shadow Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten. Mr Shorten, thank you so much for your time. I don't know whether you caught that interview with Stuart Robert, but the sophistry, I would say was breathtaking. And he keeps on comparing apples with oranges by comparing practises of income averaging under the Hawke and Keating government. But that is not what this compensation payout, 1.2 billion dollars, is about.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: No, that's right, Laura, I listened to what the Government Minister said, and on this issue, he swallowed the Trump playbook. Like, it's just B.S. I'm calling it. It's just a lie to say that this class action was nailing what governments have done for decades. That's not true. There were two lies in what he said. One is he says that governments have been doing exactly this for decades. That's not true. In 2015, the Government introduced online compliance. They changed the way in which data was assessed between government departments and they took the human oversight out of the system. Secondly, this Government’s trying to say they've fixed it? This is like the person who burns down the house taking credit for calling the fire brigade. The only thing that fixed the record breaking settlement yesterday was the class action. The Commonwealth has wasted tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money opposing the outcome, which they finally surrendered on yesterday because they just didn't want their senior public servants and Liberal ministers to have to give evidence in court. So they ponied up the money which they have illegally taken from people and have given it back to them.

JAYES: Yeah, look, I'm reluctant to give anyone a free political kick at any time, but that is not what this is about. 1.2 billion dollars, now at the biggest class action in history, you rightly point out that the Government is now claiming that it stopped this practise when it started it in the first place. But you say that they're trying to avoid putting ministers through court. On what basis do you have to say that?

SHORTEN: [broadcast disrupted] – a court to avoid having to give evidence, is that last year when I became the opposition or the Labor spokesperson on government services, I formed the view after talking to victims, talking to legal experts that their whole Robodebt scheme was simply illegal. So I then went to Gordon Legal and I said that I think that there's a class action here, that hundreds of thousands of people have been ripped off. And Gordon Legal investigated what I thought and they agreed to run a class action. It's this class action which has done what, unfortunately, parliament with Question Time and estimates, couldn't do. I mean, the system is broken in parliament because we asked for documents from the Government and they stonewalled us and fobbed us off. But under a class action, the Government has to give discovery. That's a technical term where they've got to provide all sorts of documents we couldn't obtain in parliament. Whilst I'm not clear what documents were actually obtained, I have no doubt that when the class action lawyers insisted that senior public servants and Minister Alan Tudge would have to give evidence, that put the final pressure on the government to say, listen, we better give people their money back, which we weren't entitled to take. We'd better give them compensation as well. So, you know, when I listen to the Government say that they've made no admissions of liability, I just ask Australians watching this show, if the Government gives back 1.2 billion dollars on the day of court hearings meant to start in the Federal Court, do you think that's an admission of liability? I mean, if they didn't think they were liable, they wouldn't have given this money back, plus one hundred and twelve million dollars in compensation.

JAYES: If I could focus on the positives, I guess this whole episode will make sure that this practise is not put into place for many decades or if ever. But why do you need a Royal Commission? Wouldn't this just I guess prolong the pain that many have already suffered? And is there a political aspect to all this?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, it is positive that people have got their money back, but did it really take four years of countless heartache? I mean, there's 400,000 individual stories behind this class action. People weren't able to travel overseas. They weren't able to get jobs. They were chased by debt collectors. They had findings of debt against them. It's stressful. Relationships broke up, in the case of at least three different families; I've spoken to people who said their loved one took their life because of this pressure on top of everything else. And yet we are no clearer to knowing who authorised the action. I mean, with the initial Robodebt, who didn't bother to find out that it was illegal or indeed who knew it was illegal, and hoped that because they were picking on Centrelink recipients, they thought that the poor and the vulnerable just wouldn't speak up. So I'm not convinced this government has learnt the lesson. I mean, when we see the current Minister who says, oh, well, there's nothing to see here, we're not admitting liability, how do you know that you've learnt from your mistakes if you won't even admit liability for the mistake that you made? A Royal Commission needs to make sure that we never put the computers in charge of humans again, make sure that we don't take the human out of Human Services, that we don't just go after 400,000 vulnerable Australians and treat them as second class. I mean, the real problem here is that this government, budget after budget for the last four years under the Liberals, has basically thought they could just set up a false enemy and say that there's a whole lot of people on Centrelink who are getting overpaid and shouldn't be getting paid. And basically they picked on the poor.

JAYES: If I could just finally ask you about what's going on within Labor at the moment, Troy Bramston writes today that most Labour Labor MPs think Anthony Albanese will be dumped before the next election or will not lead the party to victory if he manages to survive. Is that your view?

SHORTEN: Well, I haven't read what Troy’s written, but, you know, every election is winnable. That is my view. In terms, it's been difficult for the Opposition with COVID-19, and, you know, there's a sort of an incumbency bounce. But I think Anthony and everyone in Labor are trying their absolute hardest and that's what matters. And, you know, you look at an issue like Robodebt, we've done this in Opposition, but for Labor pushing for a class action, 400,000 everyday Australians wouldn't be getting justice. So, you know, I think we're landing blows. And as I say, if the Government think they have the next election in the bag, well, you know, there's a folly in thinking that you've got things already sorted out. Let's not underestimate the voters. They want to see what you're going to do for them. And that's what Labor's working on.

JAYES: And Joel Fitzgibbon pointed out this week as he quit and returned to the backbench that you've gone to two elections with the climate change policy that's been rejected by the Australian people. Is it time to replace the minister and rethink the policy?

SHORTEN: Oh, listen, I'm not sure that trying to blame individuals necessarily gets us anywhere, I mean, in terms of climate policy, climate is an important issue. I do accept that Joel is hearing from people in his electorate who are worried about their job security. So what we've got to do is make sure that everything we say on climate also reassures people about their jobs.

JAYES: But how do you do that? Have you failed, that you've done that over the last six years or so?

SHORTEN: I accept our climate policies for some people were able to be portrayed as threatening jobs, and that was never the intention or the plan. But, you know, if people aren't voting for us, then what we've got to do is get their votes. And if job security is their priority, then that's what matters. I mean, I notice my colleague Tanya Plibersek saying we need to double down on our commitment to full employment. That's something I believe, that's in my DNA. So I just think jobs, jobs and jobs and with COVID-19 and people doing it so hard, be it the most recent flare up in South Australia or my home town of Melbourne, where employment is a real challenge. I think everything we do, not just climate policies, but education, infrastructure, building a national capability for our manufacturing. Everything has got to come back to answer the question, is this helping create job security? Is this helping create new jobs?

JAYES: You mentioned Tanya Plibersek. Would she be a good leader of Labor federally?

SHORTEN: Oh, Laura, you're a formidable interviewer, but I'm not going to bite on that. We've got a leader who's doing a good job. And I know when I was leader, I'd have loved my Shadow Ministers to get in right behind you, so I’ll do the same.

JAYES: Did that always happen?

SHORTEN: Oh, listen, I've got no complaints. The party was united when I was Leader, and I've got no complaints.

JAYES: Bill Shorten, thanks for your time.

SHORTEN: All right, thanks, Laura