Plans for royal commission to probe who was responsible for Robodebt, what legal advice existed, how much it cost and the harm to those affected
A proposed royal commission into the Robodebt scandal may include evidence from the ex-Prime Minister “to find out what failed”.
Victoria
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Scott Morrison and some of his most senior ministers face being hauled before a royal commission into the Robodebt scandal next year.
Compensation for hundreds of thousands of victims should also be considered by the commission, according to the Gordon Legal lawyers who shut down the scheme with a $1.8bn class action settlement.
Government Services Minister Bill Shorten is drawing up plans for the high-powered commission with Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth to probe who was responsible for Robodebt, what legal advice existed, how much it cost and the harm to those affected.
The scheme, created when the former prime minister was the social services minister, was designed to save $1.5bn by clawing back welfare debts based on income averaging.
An estimated $1.73bn in illegitimate debts were raised against 433,000 Australians, even as the government was repeatedly warned Robodebt was unlawful.
Gordon Legal senior partner Peter Gordon and partner Andrew Grech nominated Mr Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert and Christian Porter as among those they believed needed to give evidence, arguing they had escaped “scot-free”.
“What we need to know is what is the degree of mendacity involved,” Mr Gordon said.
“What did Scott Morrison actually know, because he was a prime-mover in this … What did Alan Tudge know? Did they commission some secret report, and if there was, what did it say?”
Mr Shorten said the commission would decide who to call as witnesses, but that they would “no doubt go where the facts lead them”.
“This is not about some low-level Centrelink officer,” he said.
“Whilst on one level I’m fundamentally angry at the … cold-hearted Coalition ministers who seem to neither know nor care about the harm caused by Robodebt, the reality is that doesn’t capture the whole story.”
“It was the application of unaccountable powers wrapped in a deeply flawed digital service that presented unlawful debts as a false fait accompli to vulnerable Australians.”
“If we are to build the trust of citizens in government then we have to find out what failed.”
Mr Grech said compensation needed to be considered, both to support those affected and to demonstrate to politicians and public servants that there was “a price to be paid”.
“If the finding is that this was in effect extortion by the federal government … whether the restitution they got, whether the damages they got (through the class action) is something that should be revisited,” Mr Gordon added.
But opposition government services spokesman Michael Sukkar attacked the commission as an “exercise in wasting taxpayers’ money for political purposes”.
Robodebt case was ‘about as hard as it gets’
It was in late 2019 when Bill Shorten and Peter Gordon rounded a corner in Parliament House to face a pack of journalists and announce a class action against the commonwealth.
The former Labor leader had driven the bold plan to challenge the Robodebt scheme, and while he had convinced the Gordon Legal senior partner to take it to court, Gordon himself was still not quite sure how it would work as they approached the cameras.
“I don’t know these cases like I should,” he told Shorten.
“It’s fair to say that in 40 years of practising law, I’ve never run an unjust enrichment case.”
But Shorten wasn’t deterred, telling him he was “just going to have to wing it”.
And just over a year later, Gordon Legal succeeded in using that “very obscure tort” to strike a deal with the federal government to end Robodebt and pay back hundreds of thousands of victims.
According to Gordon Legal partner Andrew Grech, the case was “about as hard as it gets”.
“You know something is wrong but you don’t know the legal answer,” he said.
It took their team of young lawyers — some of whom were caught up in Robodebt themselves — to figure out how to take on the government.
“We thought there was a possibility to pay back in excess of $1bn that had been taken by the biggest organisation in the country, which is the government, illegally from a group which is essentially the least resourced, most impoverished,” Mr Gordon said.
Mr Grech added: “These people deserved a better answer than no.”
Among those they were fighting for was Felicity Button, who received a debt notice for more than $11,000 out of the blue in 2016.
She managed to negotiate a payment plan, but one morning several months later, she woke up to find debt collectors had taken the money out of her account.
“That was half a year of wages for me,” Ms Button said.
While the money was refunded two days later — after Ms Button was unable to afford groceries, petrol and medicine for her baby daughter — she believed she was the one in the wrong until she heard Mr Gordon and Mr Shorten’s class action announcement.
“I was completely ignorant because you’re meant to trust your government,” she said.
“I want them to reflect on their behaviour. Human services is supposed to serve humans, and Robodebt just served a bunch of numbers.”
“You have to have consequences so you can learn and move on.”
Mr Gordon and Mr Grech agreed, saying the royal commission was needed to draw a line under the scandal.
“If there’s one thing you should be able to depend on your government to do, it’s not break the law,” Mr Grech said.
Originally published as Plans for royal commission to probe who was responsible for Robodebt, what legal advice existed, how much it cost and the harm to those affected
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