Watch live: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responds to the findings of the robo-debt royal commission.
Collusion and dishonesty were at the heart of robo-debt, the royal commissioner into the scheme has said of the Coalition government’s illegal welfare crackdown, in a highly anticipated report that recommends individuals be referred for criminal and civil prosecution.
Morrison told the commission it was unthinkable that he would not have been told about the unlawfulness of the scheme, however, he also said he trusted that officials had resolved the issue by the time the proposal was taken to the expenditure review committee with references to legal changes deleted.
“It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the scheme’s legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings,” Holmes said of the program that ran between July 2015 and November 2019.
“Scott Morrison, of course, is mentioned countless times in this report,” Albanese said. “It is a matter for him what action he takes in response.” Holmes urged politicians to lead a change in attitudes towards welfare recipients, saying anti-welfare rhetoric used by former Coalition ministers, including Morrison, in the crackdown was “easy populism”, which was useful for campaigning.Originally billed as a $1.7 billion savings measure, the scheme ended up costing the public more than it was designed to reap after the Commonwealth settled a class action for $1.
It used Tax Office annual income data and averaged it over 26 fortnights, presuming income was the same across each, and put the onus on welfare recipients to prove they didn’t owe the government money while providing few and difficult avenues for recourse.
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