Shorten vows to ‘re-humanise’ Services Australia in robo-debt response

The public service and Services Australia will be bolstered as the federal government vows to deliver “robo-justice” to welfare recipients affected by the Coalition’s unlawful debt recovery scheme.

But any fallout for individuals involved in the welfare crackdown remains unclear, with no public information about whether criminal proceedings or corruption investigations have been initiated in response to the robo-debt royal commission’s findings.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth at a press conference on the response to the royal commission on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Government ministers on Monday repeated their condemnation of robo-debt as a “cruel and crude mechanism” as they announced the government had agreed, or agreed in principle, to each of commissioner Catherine Holmes’ 56 recommendations.

However, the government will not act on Holmes’ call to repeal part of the Freedom of Information Act that grants documents seen by the federal cabinet an exemption from publication. Holmes said those documents should be exempt only when it was reasonably justified in the public interest.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said Holmes’ suggestion had been presented in the report as a comment rather than a formal recommendation, adding “we will not be amending the Freedom of Information Act”.

The former Coalition government’s robo-debt scheme aimed to recover $1.7 billion in alleged Centrelink overpayments. It used an automated system of income averaging to identify alleged discrepancies between recipients’ reported income and income data held by the Tax Office, then put the onus on recipients to disprove the debt. Many debts were calculated based on incorrect data.

Holmes’ report found the scheme was mishandled from conception. She criticised former ministers Scott Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert and Christian Porter, saying that even when problems came to light in early 2017, the government doubled down and attacked recipients.

Her 56 recommendations mainly involved improving processes or boosting funding for government staff and agencies.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten said he had already acted on several of the recommendations by stopping the use of external debt collectors, improving communications with welfare recipients and employing 3000 extra staff at Services Australia to process payments faster.

“We have confidence that Services Australia can be re-humanised,” Shorten said.

He said the government’s investment in the agency – including $228 million for new staff – was a “recognition that people who use our welfare system deserve to be properly resourced”.

“I think that the government’s response to the royal commission is the next stage in what you call robo-justice.”

In a sealed chapter of the commission’s report, Holmes recommended some individuals be referred to various agencies – including the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Australian Federal Police and the Law Society of the ACT – for potential criminal or civil action. She did not reveal who had been referred for further investigation.

Dreyfus on Monday said he would not comment on any investigations by the anti-corruption commission or criminal proceedings.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher confirmed 16 investigations relating to potential breaches of the Australian Public Service code of conduct were under way.

“They’re being led by the public service commissioner,” she said. “There is an independent reviewer and then there will be a sanctions reviewer appointed to ensure that there’s fair and just process.”

Shorten said two mothers, Jennifer Miller and Cathy Madgwick, whose sons had taken their own lives after being chased by debt collectors, were also considering civil action.

“If I was a former Coalition minister I wouldn’t be breathing a sigh of relief that you’re out of the woods because … something grievously went wrong,” Shorten said.

“There’s the public service code ... and that’s appropriately being investigated. But I also think that it has tarnished a generation of Coalition ministers’ reputations. They will wear the stigma of robo-debt on their Wikipedia CV for the rest of their lives.”

Shorten accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of not giving a “real apology” for the scheme and challenged him to “own the sins of the Coalition”.

Dutton pointed to his comments after the report’s publication in July, when he said he was “sorry to those people that have been adversely affected, I truly am” and that the Coalition took “responsibility for that which we got wrong”.

“The politicisation of what is a very serious issue by the minister [Shorten] knows no bounds,” he said on Monday.

Dutton has also previously noted that some of his colleagues had disputed the commission’s findings and “that’s entirely their right to do so”.

Morrison, who took the initial proposal to cabinet as social services minister in 2015, issued a lengthy defence of his actions after Holmes found he had allowed cabinet to be misled over the legality of the scheme and gave untrue evidence to the commission.

“I reject completely each of the findings which are critical of my involvement in authorising the scheme and are adverse to me,” he said in July.

Tudge, Porter and Robert have also defended their actions as ministers.

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