Government has small win in bid to keep robodebt docs secret

The government has won a bid to keep some material secret as part of its fight against releasing documents about the robodebt scandal.

The federal government has had a small win as part of its fight to keep documents behind its botched robodebt scheme secret.

The case to release sensitive documents used to justify the scheme is before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) as part of a long-running fight between the government and human rights advocate Justin Warren.

Services Australia, formerly known as the human services department, and Mr Warren both made their submissions to the AAT in June.

But since the case closed, Services Australia has filed new evidence to support its application to have it reopened.

The new affidavit by Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet first assistant secretary Leonie McGregor contains information Services Australia wants to be kept secret.

The move was on Thursday opposed by Mr Warren’s lawyers, Maurice Blackburn, who are running the case pro bono.

But AAT deputy president Peter Britten-Jones agreed that the material should be kept secret from Mr Warren and his lawyers.

Mr Harris is arguing the documents he is seeking could reveal what Prime Minister Scott Morrison knew about the botched scheme. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

In his ruling, Mr Britten-Jones said he was satisfied the redacted parts of Ms McGregor’s affidavit revealed information contained in cabinet documents for cabinet deliberations and therefore should not be disclosed.

Mr Warren first requested the government documents used to justify the robodebt scheme under Freedom of Information laws in 2017.

When the human services department refused their release, Mr Warren challenged the decision through the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and won.

However, Services Australia then appealed the decision to the AAT.

In June, the Federal Court approved a $112m class action settlement for victims of the controversial robodebt scheme, which was found to have unlawfully collected money from some of the community’s most disadvantaged.

The automated commonwealth scheme matched tax and Centrelink data to claw back welfare benefits the federal government claimed had been overpaid between 2015 and 2019, wrongly hounding more than 433,000 people for $1.7m in welfare debts most never owed after the government switched to the flawed system.

Mr Warren is arguing the documents he is seeking could reveal what Prime Minister Scott Morrison and senior ministers Christian Porter and Alan Tudge knew when they had responsibility for the program.

Originally published as Government has small win in bid to keep robodebt docs secret