Former cabinet minister Alan Tudge has told a royal commission he was not responsible for his department's failure to ensure the Robodebt scheme was lawful.
Alan Tudge was a human services minister in the Coalition government led by Malcolm Turnbull
The now-shadow cabinet minister repeatedly defended the program, which continued to operate until 2019 and wrongfully accused hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients of owing money to Centrelink.Amid growing criticism and negative publicity, Mr Tudge told the commission he relied on knowledge that "income averaging" had been used for decades by "successive governments" and that it was the responsibility of department officials to confirm its legal basis.
“So the Department of Social Services' lawyers would have had to form a view that it was lawful … the Attorney-General's Department has to form a view in relation to the legalities of this initiative. "I would not expect a secretary to raise with me, 'Hey … there's question that this scheme might not be lawful,' … she's going to solve that question before raising it with the minister," he said.
"In the broad scheme … yes, but to say, the way that you put it, that I was responsible … I don't think is right," Mr Tudge said.
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