Back to reality! Furious Scott Morrison flies back from Mediterranean vacation to deliver fiery speech: ‘Wrong and absurd’

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has publicly defended his role in overseeing the illegal robodebt scheme, rejecting the findings of a recent royal commission.

In his first personal remarks since the publication of the royal commission’s final report on 7 July, Mr Morrison said the findings against him were ‘disproportionate, incorrect and baseless’ and accused the Labor government of a ‘political lynch mob’.

The report said Mr Morrison had ‘allowed the Cabinet to be misled’ about the legality of the scheme when he was Social Affairs Minister.

But Mr Morrison told parliament on Monday that the Royal Commission’s findings in the Robodebt scheme had been contradicted by the evidence presented to it.

“However, I fully reject the committee’s negative findings regarding my own role as minister of social services between December 2014 and September 2015 as disproportionate, inaccurate, unfounded,” Morrison said.

He did, however, have ‘deep regret’ about the impact the robode debt scheme had on benefit recipients.

Mr Morrison accused the Labor government of character assassination in the wake of the committee’s findings.

“For the government to now condemn me for having an opinion that they shared and maintained more than three years after I took the portfolio is sheer hypocrisy,” he said.

“The latest attacks on my character by the government in relation to this report is just another attempt by the government after my departure from office to discredit me and my service to our country.

“This campaign of political lynching once again involves the weaponization of a quasi-legal process to whitewash the government’s political vengeance.

“They have to move on.”

Mr Morrison said he had no role or responsibility in managing the robodebt scheme when he was minister.

“The committee’s finding unfairly and retroactively applies a consensus understanding of the lawful status of the scheme that was simply not in place or communicated at the time,” he said.

“This is clearly an unreasonable, untenable and false basis on which to make the serious accusation that the cabinet has been misled.”

Public Services Secretary Bill Shorten previously told parliament that the committee had rejected Mr Morrison’s evidence.

“He may have convinced himself, but he failed to convince the royal commission and even most Australians,” he said.

Mr Shorten said the government is considering all 57 recommendations in the royal commission’s final report.

Morrison said the findings against him were ‘disproportionate, wrong and unsubstantiated’ and accused the Labor government of a ‘political lynching’.

The former coalition government launched the robodebt plan in mid-2015 to “detect, investigate and deter suspected social fraud and non-compliance” in an effort to save billions of dollars.

The scheme issued IOUs to people identified through a process called income averaging, which compared reported incomes to IRS records.

More than $750 million was wrongly recovered from 381,000 people, with victims telling the commission their trauma and fear when they received notices and contacted collection agencies.

Commissioner Catherine Holmes’ report outlined a litany of human consequences, including families struggling to make ends meet and young people driven to despair. Two men in their twenties committed suicide.

Mr Morrison said he would continue to defend his time in government, adding he was pleased he was still serving Cook’s Sydney-based constituents.

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